"Decisions made by the High Court are made by men and women who are not infallible, and judicial errors may be committed now and then, but it takes wisdom, courage, and humility for the justices to admit their mistakes," former President Estrada's spokesman, former Maguindanao Rep. Didagen Dilangalen

In a statement released by Estrada's Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP), Dilangalen noted the public statement of Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban that a judicial error might have been committed in the case of Leo Echegaray, the first man to be executed after many years following the restoration of the death penalty.

Dilangalen said while Echegaray and his family might have been wronged by the judicial error, "it is an even more grievous wrong in case of a judicial error in the case of President Erap because it was a wrong committed against 11 million Filipinos who had elected him their leader until 2004."

"The facts speak for themselves in the case of the ouster of President Estrada," Dilangalen said. "Evidence shown recently before the Sandiganbayan Special Division during the plunder trial clearly shows that President Erap had not resigned and was in fact ousted through a conspiracy."

Last Wednesday, on his eighth time at the witness stand, Estrada and his lawyers presented as evidence a video footage showing President Arroyo telling a group of EDSA II supporters, including members of the Council of Philippine Affairs (COPA), that she had been meeting with five groups of military officers who were plotting Estrada's ouster a year before it actually happened.

Estrada's spokesman said there was also documented evidence that Estrada, who has remained popular despite his five-year incarceration on charges of plunder, had merely taken a temporary leave of absence in January 2001, as shown by his receipted official communications to the two leaders of Congress, which the Estrada defense panel presented before the Sandiganbayan.

These official documents stating his intention to take a leave of absence and appointing his then vice president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, as acting president on a temporary basis, were ignored by the High Court which relied instead on a diary written by a third person as published in a newspaper.

The Supreme Court ruled that Estrada had "constructively resigned" on the basis of this unauthenticated third person's diary account and in newspaper clippings' form, which was moreover submitted as evidence by the High Court itself. Neither party before the court introduced this as evidence, Dilangalen said.

"The justices know that there is no such thing as a constructive resignation of a Philippine president in the Constitution. Then there is also the file of incontrovertible evidence proving that President Erap never resigned. There was clearly no vacancy in the presidency when Mrs. Arroyo was sworn in as president," Dilangalen said.

As a result of the SC ruling, Estrada was stripped of his immunity and charged with plunder before the Sandiganbayan special division, a court especially created by the High Court for his trial.

Estrada's defense counsels have raised the argument before the Sandiganbayan that since he was unconstitutionally unseated and stripped of his immunity, he remained the legitimate and constitutional president when he was tried for plunder, rendering the trial and the case itself null and void.

The defense panel has also successfully disproved the charges against him by the government prosecutors, who had rested their case without proving their charges, Dilangalen said.