'Estrada built Camp Capinpin gate'

Former president Joseph Estrada had bank-rolled the refurbishment of the gate of Camp Capinpin, a police headquarters in southern Luzon, which has served as his detention cell following his arrest for $ 78 million plunder in 2001, a source told Gulf News.

Government officials, however, refused to confirm or deny such allegations.

Meanwhile, Chief Superintendent Rolando Sacramento of the Police Security and Protection Office (PSPO), who was in charge of Estrada's security, denied reports that the police were instrumental in allowing the former leader to leave his cell twice.

In a hearing at the Office of the Ombudsman, Sacramento said he knew that Estrada never left his cell at Camp Capinpin, the regional headquarters of the Philippine National Police.

Sacramento said he had assigned 56 security men from the PSPO and the Special Action Force to secure Estrada. "I visited him three times a week. I would always call at the camp when I could not go there to inspect," Sacramento said.

But Sacramento could not explain Estrada's claim that he had passed by his rest house when the Sandiganbayan allowed him to visit his mother for Christmas in December, and during the birthday celebration of his son Jose Jinggoy Estrada in February.

Earlier, Ignacio Bunye, the presidential spokesman, tried to explain the situation by saying, "The mandate of the jailers is to keep Estrada in custody so that he is always available. Moving 100 metres (away from the jail, its distance from Estrada‚s rest house), does not violate the mandate given to (his) jailers."

National police chief Hermogenes Ebdane has not yet testified.