Prosecutors won’t commit on gag order

Special Prosecutor Dennis Villa Ignacio, whom lawyers of ousted President Joseph Estrada have accused of making "unprofessional statements" before the press, would not commit yesterday to a setup in which no media interviews would be allowed during trial.

"I will have to think about it," he said in reaction to suggestions of Sandiganbayan justices that he and defense lawyers stop hurling insults at one another. Villa Ignacio said defense lawyers had also lavished ridicule on government prosecutors when it was their time to present evidence against Estrada.

"They were then singing before the TV camera, quartet pa nga sila (they were even a quartet)," he said. "They were laughing and heckling. They were dishing it out before. But we did not cry, we did not complain."

Villa Ignacio said they knew from the start that the plunder case against Estrada "was no ordinary case," and that developments in the trial would have political implications. "Sila nga ang banat nang banat sa amin (They kept hitting at us)," he said. "We know that this is not an ordinary case, na talagang may (that there really was) politics involved dito (here)," he said.

Last Wednesday, Justices Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Francisco Villaruz and Diosdado Peralta advised deputy special prosecutors Robert Kallos and Humphrey Monteroso to discuss the matter with Villa Ignacio.

However, Villa Ignacio said it was an "insincere expression of concern" on the part of former senator Rene Saguisag, Estrada’s lead counsel, to make a protest against him. — Delon Porcalla