While waiting for the meeting, Estrada asked the Sandiganbayan who convicted him for plunder to grant him temporary liberty so he could be at the bedside of his 102-year-old dying mother, Mary Ejercito, at the San Juan Medical Center.

At his resthouse detention in Tanay, Rizal, Estrada instructed his lawyers to file an urgent motion for reconsideration (MR) at the Sandiganbayan to allow him to stay at San Juan Medical Center because his mother might die any moment now due to aneurysm in the stomach, complicated by pneumonia and other ailments related to old age.

Estrada said his lawyers will also file before the Sandiganbayan a separate MR to appeal his plunder conviction before the 15-day period ends this month even as he expressed willingness to accept the reported offer of President Arroyo to grant him “absolute” pardon. He said he could withdraw this appeal if he is pardoned.

He also confirmed that he will meet with Puno in Tanay to discuss the Palace’s offer to grant him pardon.

“I have to see that offer (presidential pardon). I only read it in the newspapers. It (pardon) must be signed already by her (President Arroyo) once it’s shown to me," Estrada said.

The previous appeal for court furlough filed by Estrada’s lawyers a few days after his conviction last Sept. 12 was rejected by the Sandiganbayan Special Division chaired by presiding justice Teresita de Castro.

A desolate-sounding Estrada called up the media Sept. 23 after his elder sister, Dr. Pilarica Ejercito, asked him to make the decision to pull out the life-support or respiratory system which has been keeping their mother alive for the past two months.

“Naaawa na daw sila at naghihirap si Mama. Sa akin pinasa ang desisyon.

Sabi ko, di pwede dahil hindi ko makonsensiya. Eh kako, bahala na ang Diyos (They pity her because she has suffered enough. But they left the decision to me. I told them I cannot in conscience decide that. I said it’s now up to God)," Estrada told The STAR.

“It’s quite sad because I could not go there to be with my Mama,” Estrada said in Tagalog.

Mrs. Ejercito has been breathing through a tube in her throat and fed through tubes directly to her stomach. Her doctors declared that her condition had ‘deteriorated" in the last few days, especially after intravenous feeding failed.

“Baka hinihintay lang ni Mama ang paglabas ko (Perhaps, my mother is just waiting for my release)," Estrada surmised.

This is why, Estrada pointed out, he is praying that the Sandiganbayan would reconsider their decision and allow him to leave Tanay and stay with his mother longer than a 24-hour court furlough.

“That’s the most important thing to me, more than anything else,” Estrada stressed.

Pointing out that he has been in detention for the past six years and five months, Estrada said he has shown that he is not a flight risk whenever the Sandiganbayan gave him court furloughs in the past.

His conviction of plunder by the Sandiganbayan, he pointed out, should not change anything and is no reason to deny him his right to be with his mother in her dying moments.

Estrada recalled with bitterness that they tried but failed to hide from their mother, while she was still lucid, his ouster from Malacanang in January 2001 and his subsequent detention.

But after their relatives informed her about the fate that had befallen her favorite son, Estrada said this distressed his mother greatly and the news took a toll on her health.

Opposition Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro City, Estrada’s spokesman, confirmed that Puno was to meet Estrada Sept. 26.

Rodriguez said Malacanang is proposing an absolute pardon, which will not require an admission of guilt. He said the grant of absolute pardon to Estrada would promote national reconciliation and unity.

Rodriguez added that ‘at this point, amnesty is no longer an option." Three weeks ago, the Sandiganbayan convicted Estrada of plunder but acquitted him of perjury charges. The anti-graft court acquitted his son Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada and lawyer Edward Serapio.

The anti-graft court also ordered the forfeiture of the former President’s illegal assets worth more than P500 million, including P200 million deposited in the Erap Muslim Youth Foundation, which reportedly came from jueteng proceeds.

The court allowed Estrada to remain in his Tanay resthouse, where he has been under house arrest.