The mother of San Juan Mayor JV Ejercito yesterday joined the opposition in calling on the Sandiganbayan to allow former president Joseph Estrada to be released from house arrest so he can campaign for the May 14 mid-term elections.

Opposition spokesman Adel Tamano said a motion will be filed in the Sandiganbayan today seeking permission for "Estrada's participation" in the campaign.

Guia Gomez, mother of Esrtrada's son JV Ejercito, who was in Bacolod for the 50th wedding anniversary of a relative, said Estrada should be released unless the administration "is afraid to do so". "The poor guy has been languishing in jail for six year because justice has been delayed, it is just too much," she said.

Meanwhile, she said the administration has not proven anything against Estrada.

Gomez, who has roots in Negros Occidental, said that, although the surveys showed that her son was high in the ranking of potential winning senatorial candidates, she is glad he decided to instead seek reelection as San Juan mayor.

That is the best decision, to finish his term first as mayor of San Juan, she said, which she had wanted her son to do in the first place.

Estrada, who is under house arrest and on trial for corruption six years after a military-backed "people power" revolt ended his rule, still remains a major political force in the country.

Yesterday he was given permission to visit his mother, who is 102, at her home in suburban Manila. Flown by helicopter from his farm on the outskirts of Manila, he was greeted by scores of supporters and opposition candidates seeking his endorsement for their candidacies.

One of the first to greet him was senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson, according to local media reports. In 2004, Lacson ran for president against Estrada's actor friend, the late Fernando Poe Jr.

The area around his mother's home was under tight security following claims by National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales that communist rebels were planning to assassinate the former president.

The Estrada camp, however, claimed the plot was a government ploy to stop him from seeing opposition candidates as the campaign season gets underway.

Lawyers for Estrada are expected to file their motion today.

Tamano said: "They will ask the court to lift the travel and media ban against Estrada."

He said they will also ask that he be allowed to move from his farm in Tanay, just outside of Manila, to his home in suburban San Juan.

"Media should have access to him," he told local media.

"He's a national figure ... (and) he should be free to campaign," Tamano said.

He said Estrada was "frustrated because he wants to be part of this process" of elections.

Tamano said that while the opposition understood the police restrictions on Estrada's movements, they knew that the orders came from "up above".

Lacson also questioned the timing of the government in holding Estrada incommunicado.

"The one tightening the screws on Estrada is not the graft court but the executive department. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to read between the lines," he told local media.*AFP/CPG

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