Citing the no-objection comment of the prosecution panel, the court authorized Estrada to leave his detention quarters in Camp Capinpin, Tanay, Rizal at 5 a.m. on May 2 and proceed to his mother’s residence on Kennedy St., North Greenhills, San Juan, Metro Manila.

The court allowed the deposed leader to spend the night on that same day at Doña Mary’s house, but he shall be taken back to the Army camp at 5 p.m. on the following day.

Estrada’s scheduled May 2 visit to Doña Mary was the fourth request granted by the court for him to go out of his detention quarters for a while this year.

The special tribunal trying Estrada for plunder and corruption charges had earlier given him a 36- hour pass to visit his mother at the San Juan Medical Center on March 18, three- day stay at his Tanay resthouse for a Lenten retreat from April 8 to 9, and 12- hour special pass to spend his 67th birth anniversary also at his resthouse.

Estrada’s custodian, the Philippine National Police (PNP), was ordered by the court to coordinate with the office of Sandiganbayan Chief Sheriff Edgardo Urieta to “take the adequate personal and escort security measures in all movements and dispositions” of the former president.

In a three-page resolution signed by Special Division chairwoman Presiding Justice Minita V. Chico Nazario and her members, Associate Justice Edilberto G. Sandoval and Teresita Leonardo de Castro, the court ordered that no media and all other interviews shall be allowed except upon order of the court.

It also ordered that the use of any means of communications and electronics such as telephones and cellular phones by the former president will be under the discretion of the PNP.

In his motion filed through his court-appointed lawyers last week, Estrada claimed that for the past three years of his detention, there was never a time that he visited Doña Mary on her birth anniversaries.

“To reach the age of 99 now is a rare occasion and no child would pass the opportunity to be with his mother on that occasion,” Estrada said.

The former chief executive last saw his mother on March 19 when the Special Division gave him a special pass. Doña Mary was then confined in the hospital for abdominal aneurysms.

Estrada said that his last visit to his mother at the San Juan Medical Center brought him immeasurable joy and lifted his spirits. Thus, to allow him to be with his mother on her birthday, he said, would surely bring joy to her again.

During an inspection of Estrada’s resthouse in Tanay last week, Special Prosecutor Dennis Villa Ignacio promised to Estrada that the prosecution would not interpose objections to the request because the prosecutor said that he himself has a “soft spot for mothers.”

An elated Estrada thanked the prosecutor for such an assurance.