Press Release
March 4, 2008

Press statement of Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada on EO 464

SENATE PRESIDENT Pro Tempore Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada has urged President Arroyo to revoke EO 464 and allow Cabinet officials to appear in Senate hearings on the ZTE controversy if only to ease the public pressure for her to resign.

At the same time, Estrada asked the President to allow legislative processes to run their course, particularly impeachment efforts in the House of Representatives, if she is sincere in previous statements insisting she does not tolerate corruption in her administration.

Estrada explained that only by allowing an impeachment process can the President show her preference for transparency, while also affording the chance to defend herself in a respectable forum in the Senate. If the President really has nothing to hide, she should allow the legal processes to continue, revoke EO 464 and allow the Cabinet members to attend the Senate hearings, Estrada said.

The Senate Pro Tempore noted that his father, former President Joseph Ejercito Estrada allowed the impeachment proceedings against him in 2000 to prosper and did not put pressure on congressmen to stop the submission of the impeachment complaint to the Senate.

I am asking the President to submit herself to a trial before the Senate. Allow an impeachment complaint to prosper, Estrada added. Estrada said he prefers to sit as a senator-judge in an impeachment trial rather than join calls for President Arroyo's resignation.

I am not in favor of a power grab. My father was removed unconstitutionally through the connivance of the military, civil society, the Church, the elite, business clubs and the judiciary, specifically the Supreme Court, he explained.

If that should happen again, what again will be the future of the country? We will only have another chaotic future as a result of a new power grab. It will be a never ending story. The country will be in total disarray, Estrada added.

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