In connection with this observance, Estrada’s lead counsel Rene Saguisag asked the Sandiganbayan yesterday to allow Senator Estrada to receive visitors today in Tanay in a simple birthday party. But Saguisag withdrew the motion as to the planned birthday celebration of the lady senator late in the day yesterday.

Saguisag said they had been advised that if the celebration pushes through, “the matter may be left to the sound discretion of a Senator of the Realm and (PNP chief) Director General Arturo Lomibao as to who to allow in.”

The police have limited the visitors at the Tanay resthouse to immediate members of the Estrada family and lawyers of the former president.

In an omnibus motion also filed by Saguisag, Teresa “Techie” Ejercito and her Bible Study Group asked the court for permission to meet every Wednesday at the Tanay property. Techie is Estrada’s eldest daughter.

Saguisag apologized to the court after admitting that Techie’s group already held Bible Study sessions at the Tanay property in the past without the knowledge of the anti-graft court’s Special Division trying Estrada for charges of plunder and perjury.

“It would seem that contrary to our earlier informal impression, (Techie), a daughter of the principal accused, has not in fact filed a motion or request to have her Bible Study Group meet every Wednesday in Tanay. We do so now (but of course not for her as a daughter who can come and go to visit and comfort her father),” Saguisag said.

In a separate motion, Sen. Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada also asked the court to allow him to travel to five major cities in Europe and to San Francisco, California, from June 10 to July 1.

Jinggoy is a co-accused of his father in the plunder case. He is currently out on a P500,000 bail.

The young Estrada requested permission to travel to Geneva, Switzerland on June 10 to attend the 93rd Session of the International Labor Conference (ILO).

He will attend the conference in his capacity as chairman of the Senate committee on labor.

From Switzerland, Jinggoy will travel to London, Paris, Rome, and Lisbon where he would hold consultations with Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), said the three-page motion filed through his defense lawyer Jose Flaminiano.

After his European tour, Jinggoy will proceed to California to honor the invitation of San Franciscobased Novo Ecijanos to be the guest of honor in the celebration of Philippine Independence Day. While in the US, the senator will stay at the Hyatt Hotel in Burlingame.

Attached to the motion is Senate President Franklin Drilon’s approval of Jinggoy’s travel.

If allowed by the court, Jinggoy said he would comply with the usual terms and conditions imposed by the court whenever it grants an accused permission to travel abroad.

Jinggoy had been granted by the court the permission to travel abroad several times in the past.