Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada (right) and his embattled son, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, arrive at Crame Crame for the latter’s surrender on June 23. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines–Malacañang on Wednesday assured Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada that it wasn’t out to remove him from office and that it did not have a hand in the disqualification case hounding him in the Supreme Court.
Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the executive department recognized the independence of the high court and would not interfere with the case against the 77-year-old mayor.
Estrada, who was ousted from the presidency in 2001 but managed to make a comeback in local politics, had accused the administration of engineering the prosecution of key opposition leaders in view of the 2016 polls. He made the remarks on Monday, hours before his son, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, surrendered to the police after being ordered arrested by the antigraft court on charges of plunder in connection with the park barrel scam.
Lacierda noted that the disqualification case against Estrada, which was initiated by lawyer Alicia Resos-Vidal long before the pork barrel scandal broke out, was still pending with the high tribunal.
“We certainly do not know the basis of those allegations. We have always maintained a distance from the Supreme Court. So I don’t know why they are now alluding to our involvement when we don’t even know the proceedings that are happening before the Supreme Court in respect of the disqualification case against Mayor Estrada,” the Palace official said.
He maintained that there was no acrimony brewing between the Aquinos and the Estradas and that the mayor even helped the government negotiate a deal with the Hong Kong
Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda
government to put closure to 2010 hostage-taking incident in Manila which happened during the term of then Mayor Alfredo Lim.
“We would like to assure Mayor Estrada, and with all due respect to whatever was mentioned to him or confided to him by his allies, that we have no plan to eliminate Mayor Estrada,” Lacierda said in a briefing.
Besides, he said, it is the voters who determine the fate of public officials. “Elective officials serve at the sufferance of the governed. So, it’s the people who will (give the) mandate, whether a public official will be elected or not, not the executive branch,” he said.