MANILA, Philippines -- It is hardly visible in the streets, but the outrage over President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s pardon of convicted plunderer Joseph Estrada is increasingly growing in cyberspace.

Indignation is spreading in e-mail exchanges, letters to online papers, blogs and chatrooms.

A call for a protest rally at Philippine consulates abroad is being organized online.

The outrage is directed not only at Ms Arroyo’s hasty grant of executive clemency but also at Estrada’s quick acceptance of it without any expression of guilt or remorse.

“The issue today is not Erap’s guilt or innocence,” said Francisco Nemenzo, former president of the University of the Philippines, in an e-mail to the national council of Laban ng Masa.

“The Sandiganbayan decision did not and could not have resolved it because the credibility of this institution as a pillar of justice is itself in grave doubt,” he said. “The issue is the meaning of his pardon by a bogus President.”

Nemenzo said that Estrada could have “emerged a hero” had he stuck to his stand against a pardon, or could have at least retained a measure of sympathy had he accepted it “just to be with his ailing mother.”

“Unfortunately, he went overboard in expressing his gratitude to GMA (Ms Arroyo), to the extent of helping a rotten regime survive the current crisis. He echoed her hypocritical call for national unity and even pledged support for her nebulous antipoverty program,” he said.

The President pardoned Estrada on Oct. 26 in what both camps claimed was a step toward national reconciliation, weeks after the ousted leader was convicted of plunder by the Sandiganbayan.

Following Ms Arroyo’s move, Estrada distanced himself from opposition calls for Ms Arroyo’s resignation sparked by a series of corruption scandals, including allegations of overpricing and kickbacks in a broadband deal with China and payoffs to politicians purportedly to stave off another impeachment attempt.

Estrada was ousted in January 2001 in a People Power revolt after a failed impeachment trial on corruption charges.

In an e-mailed statement to newspapers and friends, the Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture slammed the pardon as “cheap grace.”

Vicente Romano, who ran an on-line protest against corruption in the Estrada administration, said: “I don’t think you will see people go out in the street on their own. I don’t think it will be expressed in rallies; it will be in writing.”

The sudden shift in mood from indifference to outrage has been particularly “discernible” among the middle class and the elite, Romano said.

“Now that the alignment is clear, and Estrada’s camp is with GMA (Ms Arroyo), these people are more willing to come out. What needs to happen is a build-up of activities,” he said.

Romano himself is organizing synchronized protests on Ayala Avenue in Makati City and at all Philippine consulates abroad on Friday next week through his network of electronic warriors or (e-Mandirigma).

Also on Thursday, Sen. Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada said he was planning to seek an audience with President Arroyo to personally thank her for the pardon granted to his father.

“Because my grandmother was (sic) in real critical condition, Mrs. Arroyo probably thought that my dad should be at the bedside of my grandmother. And in fact I believe that GMA knows that Erap did not steal money from the government,” Estrada said. With a report from Gil C. Cabacungan Jr.