During Wednesday's hearing, Justice Minita Nazario, head of the Special Division, announced that thenceforth hearings would be held thrice weekly. Flaminiano objected immediately, saying their calendars were full. But Nazario pointed out earlier that they had come to an agreement to increase the frequency of the hearings. She also reminded them that the court had given them at least a month to adjust their schedules.

Flaminiano protested that because of their busy schedules they might not be able to attend some of the hearings if these are set thrice weekly. Or they might be too exhausted to put up a good defense for their client. "This is a capital offense," Flaminiano reminded the court. "Three times a week of trial will not give us a chance to effectively defend the accused."

Of course, given their caliber, Estrada's lawyers must be loaded with cases. But then there are seven of them, not counting their support staff. Surely they can juggle their schedules so that at least three or four of them can be present at any given hearing. Besides this is supposed to be the "trial of the century," so why don't they give it the highest priority? Is Estrada not taking good care of them perhaps?

Given the gravity of the charges filed against him, Estrada is certainly entitled to the best defense. But it seems that even his hotshot lawyers have long given up hope of winning an acquittal if the trial ever comes to a conclusion. Thus instead of risking a judgment of guilty, they have adopted delay as a key strategy. While complaining about the inconveniences their client has to suffer in the presidential suite of the Veterans Medical Center, they have turned on its head the common saying by making sure that justice is delayed and therefore denied -- the aggrieved party who are the Filipino people. The idea obviously is to let the cases drag until a new administration kinder to Estrada comes to power.

Thus even before he could be arraigned in July, Estrada's lawyers had already filed a total of 68 motions both before the Sandiganbayan and the Supreme Court. Since then they have filed close to 50 other motions in a very obvious bid to delay, confuse and overwhelm both the prosecution and the court. At the rate the Third Division was going, it was estimated that the cases would have taken at least five years to resolve.