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Estrada's 'greatest performance' ends in tragedy
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TWO and half years after coming to power in an election landslide, actor-turned-president Joseph Estrada saw his “greatest performance” end in tragedy on Saturday as the screen hero bowed out in humiliating defeat.
Estrada was forced out of office after almost all of his cabinet members resigned, the military withdrew its support and an estimated half a million Filipinos took to the streets to demand -- and then celebrate -- his ouster.
After his election in 1998, Estrada had vowed to show up critics who said the college drop-out, gambler, drinker and womanizer was not fit to be president.
“This will be my last and greatest performance,” he said of his presidency.
Now, with his six-year term less than half finished, his critics are gloating.
The eighth of 10 children of a Manila engineer, Joseph was the black sheep of the upper-middle-class Ejercito family, dropping out of engineering school and hanging out with unsavoury types.
He took up acting, to the horror of his conservative parents who forbade him from using the family name. So he adapted the name Joseph Estrada and later became popularly known by his nickname “Erap”.
Estrada won a clutch of acting awards and also acquired several mistresses -- most of them film co-stars -- along the way to the presidency, and he made no secret of his love affairs and numerous families even after coming to power.
He specialized in playing street toughs, squatters, labour leaders, gangsters, rebels, farmers -- always lower-class figures who spoke bad English but were eloquent with their fists and usually overcame their upper-class tormentors.
These roles endeared him to the Filipino masses and in 1969, he launched his political career as mayor of San Juan, the same Manila suburb to where he returned on Saturday after leaving the presidential palace.
When he ran for president in 1998, many warned that the Philippine elite would not let him win. The dominant Catholic church which disapproved of his lifestyle campaigned against him.
Estrada fought back with the populist card, running under the slogan “Erap for the poor” and promising to work for the vast numbers of impoverished Filipinos whose lot had remained unchanged by a succession of upper-class presidents.
The masses carried him to victory. However, things soon turned sour.
Estrada was embroiled in a series of scandals ranging from his promise to have the late deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos buried in the military “Heroes' Cemetery” to peristent reports of all-night drinking sessions with a shadowy group of friends who would later help bring him down.
One of them was indicted for the country's worst share insider-trading scandal and Estrada was accused of asking regulators to exonerate him.
Another drinking buddy, provincial governor Luis Singson, charged in October that Estrada had received bribes from gambling lords and embezzled government funds, triggering the legal process that led to his downfall.
The House of Representatives impeached him on these charges in November and he was put on trial in the Senate in November.
The president's allies in the Senate seemingly saved him last on Tuesday by voting to exclude potentially-damning bank records as evidence. But this merely enraged the public, sending thousands into the streets.
The massive protests prompted cabinet members and top officials to resign and the military withdrew support for him.
Estrada tried to negotiate for more time but the Supreme Court on Saturday declared the president's position vacant and vice-president Gloria Arroyo, who defected to the opposition coalition, was sworn in to replace him. (SD-Agencies)
Gloria Arroyo: contrast in styles
WHEN the bribery scandal surrounding Philippines President Joseph Estrada erupted in October last year, his deputy wasted little time in announcing she was ready to step into his shoes.
In recent weeks, Gloria Arroyo has led repeated calls for Estrada to step down over allegations he took millions of dollars in bribes from illegal gambling syndicates.
Arroyo is the daughter of the popular former President, Diosdado Macapagal, and her style could hardly be more different to that of Estrada.
Her predecessor, famed for his mangled English, numerous mistresses and fondness for drinking and gambling, portrayed himself as a man of the people.
Arroyo, by contrast, comes from the political elite and is a trained economist.
She was Bill Clinton's classmate at Georgetown University in Washington and has a doctorate in economics from the University of the Philippines.
Like Estrada, Arroyo is married with three children. Unlike him, she is not famed for a string of extramarital affairs.
Commentators say Arroyo, a diminutive, softly-spoken woman, will introduce a more wholesome tone to the administration.
“The main difference between them is that she won't spend all night in drinking and gambling sessions with cronies,” said one Philippines analyst.
Arroyo, 53, has said she will try to arrest the drift towards cronyism and put the privatization and liberalization reforms of former President Fidel Ramos back on track.
She has also said she will ensure greater stability by basing her administration on party policies, rather than the strength of her personality.
Arroyo's route into politics was rather more conventional, if less glamourous, than that of her former boss.
She started her government career with the Department of Trade and Industry where she was promoted to undersecretary by President Corazon Aquino.
In 1992, she was elected to the Senate. When re-elected in 1995, it was with the largest number of votes in any Philippines election.
Three years later she won a landslide victory to become vice-President.
Although she is not from his ruling party, Estrada made her his social welfare secretary - a post she promptly quit after the bribery allegations surfaced.
But Arroyo is not without her own critics. Some say she relies too much on the reputation of her father who was president in the early 1960s.
Others are disappointed at her repeated denunciation of Estrada, which they see as a sign of disloyalty.
In interviews she is keen to stress her Catholic faith. "I follow my father's philosphy," she says. "Do what is good, do what is right and God will take care of the rest." (SD-Agencies)
Chronology of Philippine corruption scandal
Chronology of events leading to the ovethrow of Philippine president Joseph Estrada and swearing in of vice president Gloria Arroyo.
Oct 9, 2000: Estrada's former friend, provincial Governor Luis Singson accuses the president of pocketing more than US$8 million in bribes from illegal gambling syndicates and about US$4 million in kickbacks from tobacco excise taxes.
Oct 12: Vice-President Gloria Arroyo, the constitutional successor to Estrada, resigns from her cabinet post as social welfare secretary.
Oct 18: Opposition legislators file an impeachment motion against Estrada in the House of Representatives over the gambling payoffs scandal as thousands of anti-Estrada activists, led by former president Corazon Aquino, call for the president to quit.
Oct 25: Arroyo forms a united opposition against the embattled president.
Nov 8: In his first detailed reply to the illegal gambling bribery allegations, Estrada admits US$4 million in intended bribes were deposited into the account of a presidential charity organization controlled by his lawyer.
Estrada says the money is intact and can be used as evidence to disprove corruption charges against him.
Nov 13: Estrada is impeached by the House of Representatives for alleged corruption, betrayal of public trust and violations of the constitution.
Dec 7: Senate begins corruption trial with prosecutors accusing Estrada of being a thief who has run the Philippines like a gangland boss.
Dec 13: Singson, Estrada's former drinking buddy and self-confessed bagman, testifies that the president led a nationwide protection racket for illegal lotteries and collected millions of dollars in secret payoffs.
Dec 22: A senior bank officer testifies she was one foot away when Estrada repeatedly signed a false name on a US$10 million trust account allegedly built up through criminal activities.
Dec 30: Five bombs explode in Manila, killing 22 people and wounding almost 100 others. Opposition groups accuse of Estrada of orchestrating the blasts to divert attention.
Jan 11: Former Finance Secretary Edgardo Espiritu says Estrada admitted he made huge sums of money through a business friend later indicted for insider trading.
Jan 15: Espiritu and at least two other witnesses who testify against Estrada flee abroad after facing death threats.
Jan 16: The 21 senators acting as judges in the trial decide in a 11-10 vote to disallow examination of an alleged US$66 million secret bank account allegedly built up from illicit sources. This was seen as a virtual acquittal of Estrada.
Jan 17: Prosecutors in the trial quit en masse, leaving it in limbo. Thousands of people take to the streets to protest the Senate decision.
Jan 18: Opponents call for a million-man march against Estrada, but it is later called off amid fears of violence.
Jan 19: Estrada authorizes his bank records to be opened and urges a snap presidential election in May, but fails to stop a wave of defections as cabinet members resign and military officers withdraw their support.
Jan 20: Estrada refuses to resign, Supreme Court declares the presidency vacant, and Vice-President Gloria Arroyo, a US-educated economist, is installed as the new president at noon. Two and a half hours later, Estrada and his family leave the presidential palace. (SD-Agencies)
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