He kept a confident grin, cigarette in one hand, while monitoring preliminary voting turnout on a huge TV screen the size of a billiards table at his Polk Street residence in San Juan.
The race was far from over, he was probably thinking as any seasoned politician would. But around him, supporters including his daughter Jerika Larize were growing uneasy.
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They were pacing the expansive living room, letting out a hushed groan each time TV results announced Aquino leading Estrada.
By 10:30 p.m., Estrada’s mood changed. The 73-year-old ousted leader holed himself up in his private office, making himself available only to his most trusted lieutenants such as Ernesto Maceda and Horacio “Boy” Morales, his campaign strategists.
It might have finally hit him. Defeat—his first in his decades-long political career—was imminent.
On Tuesday Estrada said he was open to following Sen. Manuel Villar’s lead and also concede defeat to the Liberal Party’s Aquino, who, as of Tuesday, was leading him by at least five million votes.
“Why not?” he said in a phone interview with the Inquirer. “Give me time to think it over.”
Asked what he thought of Villar’s decision, he said: “Good for him. Good for him.”
Estrada acknowledged the consolation that while he might have been defeated, he got much more votes than Villar, a perceived favorite to win the presidency until late last year.
“Yes,” he said, his voice glum. “It’s a good fight, but I didn’t have the money.”
His election lawyer George Garcia was more combative, saying the results coming from the Commission on Elections had no bearing because only Congress was authorized to canvass votes for president and vice president.
“This isn’t done yet, unless the president (Estrada) changes his mind,” he told the Inquirer. “Definitely, we will proceed with the canvassing and will end the canvassing. We will present our case before the canvassing body, the Congress of the Philippines.”
Garcia later told reporters: “We have evidence to prove that there are certain irregularities that were committed to favor certain candidates… when the president saw this, he had a spark of hope.”
But Estrada said his lawyer was acting on his own. “Isip n’ya yun, ‘di ko isip yun. Posisyon n’ya ‘yun,” he said.
Estrada was apparently at a loss beginning late Monday or when he got—mainly through partial and unofficial results—a clear picture of his fate in the country’s first-ever nationwide automated elections.
“Wala pa, wala pa,” he replied when asked what he planned to do in the wake of an Aquino victory.
Around 11 p.m., Maceda and Morales were writing down what appeared to be reported results from different parts of the country. Moments later, Estrada summoned them to his private office.
What transpired inside the room was probably reflected only in Jerika’s worried expression each time she came out of it.
Estrada left home shortly before 2 a.m. Tuesday to attend the proclamation of former starlet Guia Gomez, who won the mayoral race in San Juan, and their son JV Ejercito, who was unopposed in the congressional derby.
Since he returned home hours later, he had not left his North Green Hills residence as of late Tuesday afternoon. What was also a house-cum-war room often opened to media was made available only to close friends and political supporters.
Reporters trailing him were told that Maceda and company were still tallying results of different regions.
Posted 17:15:00 05/11/2010
By Christian V. Esguerra
Philippine Daily Inquirer
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