Estrada back at rest house, invites Cruz to run for office

Despite having only seven hours to spend with his mother, former President Joseph Estrada returned in high spirits to his Tanay, Rizal rest house, where he has been orderd confined by the court while facing plunder and perjury charges. Estrada's spokesman and lawyer Rufus Rodriguez said the former President left his mother Mary's house along Kennedy Street in North Greenhills at about 4 p.m., an hour before the furlough granted by the Sandiganbayan expired. "He left for Tanay aboard a helicopter. It was very good, he spent much time with his mother, even if he was only given less than nine hours," Rodriguez said in an interview on dzBB radio. Rodriguez also said that when Estrada was at his mother's residence, the detained former President designated him to be an emissary to resigned Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz Jr to extend an invitation to join the opposition. "I think he deserves a slot in the opposition slate," Rodriguez recalled Estrada telling him, in an interview on dzBB radio. Cruz submitted his irrevocable resignation to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo following a tiff with other Cabinet members over his oppositition to the campaign for a people's initiative to amend the 1987 Constitution. The former President bucked a one-and-a-half-hour delay Monday morning to get to his mother's house for his visit, but was unfazed as he brought with him gifts of vegetables, fish and roasted pig. He appeared to be in high spirits as he visited his mother at her house, going straight to the kitchen to prepare his mother's favorite dish of carp and vegetables while singing for her. Also during the visit, Estrada received several guests, including his former Cabinet members and even administration senators such as Manuel Roxas II. Rodriguez, Estrada's spokesman, also said that Cruz's law firm, believed to have close ties with Mrs. Arroyo and First Gentleman Jose Miguel "Mike" Arroyo, would be welcome to ally itself with the opposition. "If Nonong (Cruz's nickname) is interested in running for the Senate, he'll be in the slate. He can still join the ranks (of the opposition), (including) members of the law firm," Rodriguez said. -GMANews.TV