Arroyo releases 50 Estrada supporters

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo released 50 of the 100 supporters of former president Joseph Estrada from jail yesterday in what is being seen as "a time of healing". But she also stressed her government would not back down in efforts to prosecute opposition leaders accused of masterminding the palace attack as part of an alleged plot to seize power.

Arroyo issued a directive to Justice Secretary Hernando Perez for the release of the arrested protesters who live in Metro Manila's depressed areas, in suburban Caloocan, Malabon, and Navotas. They were all charged with sedition when the government placed Metro Manila under a state of rebellion.

The justice department is under pressure to withdraw the charges filed against the protesters. Arroyo has also ordered security forces to stop the indiscriminate rounding up of residents of shanty areas while in search of leaders among the poor who supported Estrada and took part in riots on their way to the presidential palace on May 1.

Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman said the men who were released would undergo a week of workshops and training and would still have to appear in court once called. The 50 arrested protesters who were placed in her custody, she said, were given provisional freedom. Half of those arrested were under the influence of alcohol, or prohibited drugs, which prompted them to throw stones at the anti-riot police, burn media vehicles and loot some stores along the way to the presidential palace.

"Our President is a president who takes care of the poor. She understands the poor have legitimate grievances and that other people who manipulated them should be the ones to pay the price," said Soliman, adding Arroyo's earlier visit to the detention centres where the rioters were jailed had enlightened her.

More importantly, the President has called for an end to military patrols in Metro Manila's depressed areas, said Presidential spokesperson Roberto Tiglao. "What they did (recently) was just a show of force to stop the regrouping of rioters (and would-be coup plotters)," Tiglao said, explaining news reports which quoted several leftist groups and the opposition complaining that the military conducted a saturation crackdown in urban poor communities in Metro Manila.

Officials denied any mass arrests were made. At the same time, the Philippine National Police was told to suspend its warrantless arrests which remained despite the lifting of the state of rebellion in Metro Manila, the justice secretary said.

The government was pressured by many human rights groups, said a source, adding the groups included Church-based associations. The complainants were encouraged to lodge complaints, said Perez, adding: "We have waited for a day and we have not received a complaint."

Arroyo has denied that the military and the police have jointly started new round up operations against the leaders of the pro-Estrada rallies. The health department said half of the 100 who were arrested tested positive for shabu, indicating they could have been egged on to march to the presidential palace at their own risk without leaders.

The rallies began on April 25, when Estrada was arrested ahead of his trial for economic plunder, a non-bailable offence, which carries a death sentence upon conviction. Meanwhile, businessman Mark Jimenez, a congressional candidate for Manila's 6th district, denied allegations that he was one of the financiers of the Estrada loyalist rallies that tried to overthrow the government.

"Many lies have been thrown at me. This one is the biggest of them all," said Jimenez, also known as Mario Crespo. He used to be Estrada's close friend, but he eventually decided to become a state witness at Estrada's trial in the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court.

"It's public knowledge that I am supportive of the Arroyo administration. What's more, I have no time for that as I have my hands full with the election campaign. I have not talked to a single personality involved at the EDSA rally," said Jimenez.

Earlier, Justice Secretary identified Jimenez as a possible funder of the anti-government rallies from April 25 to May 1. Jimenez was indicted in Florida in 1999 for alleged tax evasion, mail fraud and illegal campaign contributions to the U.S. Democratic Party. He escaped the United States and became Estrada's adviser on Latin American affairs in 1998.