JEDDAH — I WOKE up Wednesday morning and jumped out of bed to go to the living room and switch on my TV to find out what the verdict was in former President Joseph Estrada’s so-called “plunder” trial.

Because of the five-hour time difference between Jeddah and Manila, by the time I awoke at 9 a.m., ANC was showing the government’s economic presentation live from Makati, but the news ticker line at the bottom of my screen said that Estrada had been found guilty by the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court and sentenced to life in prison! That sounded too harsh to me. After all, he hadn’t stolen directly from government coffers and what about his former best friend, Luis Chavit Singson? He should have been tried and found guilty of plunder. After all it was he who funneled jueteng funds from Illocos Sur to Estrada when he was the governor.

Flipping the channel to CNN, Estrada’s sentencing didn’t even make the top headlines. Depressed by the lack of live coverage, I went back to bed. Later when I woke up again, presidential adviser Sergio Apostol was gloating on television that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was loudly celebrating with administration congressmen in a wing of Malacañang Palace. “She (Mrs. Arroyo) was so happy over the verdict that her laughter was heard the loudest on top of the others among the crowd (of lawmakers) who visited her,” according to a Palace insider quoted in yesterday’s Daily Tribune.

But Estrada is appealing the conviction and his case will ultimately end up in front of the Supreme Court. As the Black and White Movement said in a statement, what about all the other corrupt government officials such as Virgilio Garcilliano and Benjamin Abalos? Indeed, what about them? A UP professor of political science told ANC on Wednesday that the Arroyo administration has a tiny window of opportunity now to go after corrupt politicians in its own camp to prove to the country that it is not politically biased against the opposition. Sadly, with the political scene in the Philippines so polarized as it is, I hardly think that President Arroyo is capable of being even-handed even if she wanted to be!

The sight of the Sandiganbayan court judges and staff barely able to hide their smirking, smug in their middle class sense of moral superiority that they had finally nailed a corrupt politician, was sickening to watch. Estrada had always rubbed the ruling classes and their middle class allies they wrong way. His fondness for gambling, heavy drinking and womanizing may have endeared him to the masses, who loved him for his perceived role as a campaigner for the underdog, but the political ruling class and big businessmen were horrified that such man occupied the presidential palace.

Estrada was stupid enough to surround himself with highly dubious friends such as Atong Ang, a man linked to smuggling, and Singson who ran a huge illegal gambling operation on Illocos Sur. They both would later turn and testify against Estrada.

The sight of Singson perched in his living room on Wednesday watching the verdict and announcing that he thought there should be the death penalty for plunder, while a diamond encrusted bracelet twinkled on his wrist, was too sickening for words! What sort of message does this send to the public? That if you suddenly switch sides and squeal on your former best friend you can get away with massive corruption and live to enjoy its fruits? If Arroyo were serious about cracking down on corruption she would have placed Singson on trial too — but then he wouldn’t have testified against Estrada, so I guess that scenario would never have been possible in the first place.

The group Plunderwatch, which started the investigation into Estrada’s corruption, says it will now concentrate on going after President Arroyo for her allegedly far greater plunder crimes. That is why I think that the president and her allies will find some way to postpone the presidential elections in 2010, which Arroyo is not allowed by law from running in.

With this extremely harsh verdict, Arroyo has continued the politics of vengeance, which is tearing the Philippines apart. At every turn, the president’s closest aides are always quoted as saying that she wants reconciliation with her political opponents. Sadly what we see in practice is far from reconciliation, which can only lead us to conclude that these platitudes are just being mouthed to appease the public.

If Arroyo were seriously interested in reconciliation, she should pardon Estrada within the next few weeks. Already 70, and with his ailing mother in hospital, Estrada is no threat to Arroyo. I don’t think the Filipino public is ready to see a former president in an orange prison jumpsuit being led into a cell at Muntinlupa prison to serve his 40-year jail term.

What is so sad about this whole affair is that President Estrada had so much potential for changing the political landscape for the better. The millions of poor Filipinos, who voted for him in 1998, placed all of their hopes and dreams in him. Unfortunately, Estrada squandered them all in his gambling and corruption.

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