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Iloilo City — Pardoned plunderer and former president Joseph Estrada is not closing the doors on the possibility of running for his former post in the 2010 elections.
When asked by reporters yesterday if he has plans for the next elections, Estrada said: "No plans ... as of now," then broke into laughter.
Estrada, 70, is on his first visit to Iloilo after he was convicted of plunder in September last year and, barely two months later, evaded a 40-year jail term when President Macapagal-Arroyo granted him executive clemency, finally releasing him from detention in his vacation villa in Tanay, Rizal.
Estrada, who arrived here to speak at the graduation ceremonies of the University of Iloilo, said his focus is to "help unite the opposition and come up with one presidential candidate" in the 2010 elections "so that cheating will be prevented."
He said that if the opposition will have more than one candidate, "it would be easier to be cheated like what happened to (his close friend and the late action star Fernando Poe Jr.)"
He named the possible presidential candidates of the opposition as Senate President Manuel Villar and Senators Manuel "Mar" Roxas II, Francis Escudero, Panfilo Lacson and Loren Legarda.
Asked whom among the five he is favoring, Estrada said he will support the one who will top the surveys.
Dispelling notions that he is preparing for the 2010 elections, Estrada said he is going to provinces and towns to thank his supporters.
"I want to reciprocate what the poor people have done for me. The poor people are the ones who had patronized my movies, not the rich and the educated," said the ex-president who was also a former action star.
"I want to be remembered as a man who championed the cause of the masses," he said.
Estrada thanked his supporters who voted for his wife former senator Luisa "Loi" Ejercito and son Sen. Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada.
Estrada was welcomed by his supporters from his arrival at the Iloilo airport around 10:30 a.m.
He was escorted by a 15-vehicle convoy, including police escorts, from the Iloilo airport to the Breakthrough Restaurant in Arevalo District in this city where he had lunch with his hosts, former Iloilo Rep. Albertito Lopez and his wife former Guimaras Gov. Emily Lopez. The couple Estrada as commencement speaker in the graduation ceremonies of the Lopez-owned University of Iloilo. Inquirer
