Former President Joseph Estrada admitted on Thursday that his biggest mistake was stepping down in 2001 that brought to a successful conclusion the power-grab scheme of the rich in collusion with some political and church personalities to rob the poor of his anti-poverty platform.

“And learning from experience and from that mistake, a repeat of such a horrible manipulation to remove a constitutionally-installed president would not be allowed to happen again in the second Estrada administration,” Estrada said.

But he stressed that although it was a huge mistake to step down in January 2001, he has no regrets having made that decision to go on official leave, but not resigning from the presidency, pointing to the absence of bloodshed in the streets.

“Loss of lives would have been allowed to happen by the coup-plotters who were both determined and desperate to sow violence at the expense of innocent people in their hunger and haste to attain un-earned power,” Estrada said.

The popular opposition leader, who has announced his decision to run in the May 2010 presidential race, also said that learning from the experience of his abbreviated presidential term in 2001, he will continue exercising caution in trusting “so-called friends in sheep’s clothing.”

“But one thing sure, I will not be allowed to be dictated by the agony of the past in the day-to-day governance in the forthcoming Estrada administration,” he said, adding that he will use that experience to benefit all social classes of Filipinos specially those who live way below the poverty line.