PARDON FOR ERAP DOESN'T MEAN OPPOSITION
WILL NOW BE SOFT ON GLORIA

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said the executive clemency granted to former President Joseph Estrada will not dampen the resolve of the political opposition in exposing and checking the misuse of power and corrupt ways of the Arroyo administration.

Pimentel said that despite the favor given to him by Mrs. Arroyo, he does not believe the former president will allow himself to be coopted by the administration.

"As far as we in the Senate opposition are concerned, the presidential pardon has no effect whatsoever on our tasks of searching for the truth and of fighting wrongdoing in government. If President Arroyo is thinking that we will be soft on criticizing her government over the national broadband-ZTE contract and the Palace payoff and extra-judicial killings, for example, she is terribly wrong," he said.

The minority leader vowed that the opposition will not succumb to intense Malacañang pressure to terminate the Senate probe on the broadband-ZTE deal and the 2004 wiretapping scandal. He said they are exhausting all legal avenues, including the intervention of the Supreme Court, to compel the Palace to lift its gag order on Cabinet members and other officials of the executive branch summoned to the Senate inquiries.

Pimentel said Estrada as a leader of the opposition could not be underestimated because of a large fraction of the citizenry that continues to support him, even during the more than six years he was under detention.

Pimentel also defended Mr. Estrada from criticisms that he has made a political somersault by requesting and accepting pardon from President Arroyo, putting aside his stand that he does not recognize him as legitimate president.

In political and constitutional law, Pimentel said there is a distinction between a de jure (lawful) ruler and de facto (in actuality) ruler.

"I think Erap accepted the pardon extended by Mrs. Arroyo on the basis of her being a de facto, and not necessarily a de jure president," he pointed out.

Pimentel added that since the pardoning power is an absolute and exclusive power that President Arroyo has decided to apply to Estrada, the burden of explaining such decision rests on her shoulders.

What is clear, he stressed, is that the legitimate opposition will not turn its back on its constitutional role of fiscalizing the Arroyo presidency and the party in power and in offering an alternative program of government to the people.