Senator Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada asked the Manila regional trial court (RTC), which issued a precautionary hold departure order (PHDO) against him, to allow his travel to Hongkong, Macau, and Japan from March 31 to April 5.

“We filed an omnibus motion to, first, reconsider the issuance of the PHDO and, second, for the lifting of the PHDO,” said lawyer Bianca Soriano, Estrada’s legal counsel.

Earlier, Estrada had also asked the Sandiganbayan to allow him to travel starting March 31. He sought the Sandiganbayan’s permission to travel due to his pending 11 graft cases before the anti-graft court.

It was not known as of posting time if Estrada's motion before the Sandiganbayan had been granted.

The PHDO was issued by the Manila RTC due to the pending plunder, graft, and indirect bribery charges filed against Estrada before the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Aside from Estrada, also respondents in the charges and also subjects of PHDO are former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) secretary Manuel Bonoan, former DPWH undersecretary Roberto Bernardo, DPWH Regional Director Gerard Opulencia, and former DPWH Bulacan First District engineer Henry Alcantara.

The PHDO bans Estrada and his co-respondents from travelling abroad.

Estrada also filed his counter-affidavit on the plunder and other charges filed by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and are now subject of preliminary investigation by the DOJ.

Soriano said Estrada’s counter-affidavit was filed on Thursday, March 12, before the panel of prosecutors conducting the preliminary investigation on the charges of his alleged involvement in anomalous government flood control projects in Bulacan.

She said that in Estrada’s counter-affidavit “we also discussed the admissibility and the credibility of the evidence which will not be able to meet the threshold required for criminal cases before the DOJ or the Ombudsman.”

At the same time, she said: “We also attacked the inconsistency of the statements as well as the other documentary [evidence] and affidavits.”

She pointed out that jurisprudence requires “to be more cautious with testimonies of those who are applying for the state witness protection program.”

On the PHDO, Soriano said the order should be lifted because the rules require that there should be probable cause and, second, the respondent is a flight risk.

“So, we already attacked the evidentiary nature that there is no probable cause, and that respondent Estrada is not a flight risk,” he also said.

Earlier, the Sandiganbayan had allowed Estrada to travel to Japan from Dec. 26 to 31, 2025 and to Norway, Iceland, and Austria from Jan. 5 to 15, 2026. He immediately returned to the Philippines after his trip abroad.

The travel was granted at that time despite the opposition from the prosecution that Estrada was one of the many individuals being investigated by the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) in anomalies involving the government’s flood control projects.