Kickback Scandal Bedevils Estrada’s Presidency

If there is one thing Philippine President Joseph Estrada should have learned over the past week, it is to pick his friends more carefully.

The former action movie star finds himself caught up in the biggest scandal of his career after a onetime drinking buddy, provincial Gov. Luis “Chavit” Singson, claimed to have funneled the equivalent of more than $8.2 million in illegal gambling kickbacks to the president.

Estrada’s many opponents have seized on the charges to try to force the president from office. Leading national figures, including Roman Catholic Cardinal Jaime Sin, have called on Estrada to resign. On Wednesday, 40 members of the House of Representatives filed a motion of impeachment. Hours later, about 10,000 protesters staged an anti-Estrada demonstration in the heart of Manila’s business district.

Estrada’s critics contend that the gambling scandal is responsible for hammering the value of the Philippine peso and prompting the stock market to tumble to its lowest level in two years.

But allegations sufficient to bring down a leader in some countries are likely to result only in a long and nasty political spat in the Philippines. The populist president commands a strong following among the poor, and his coalition controls 80% of the seats in the House--making impeachment unlikely.

Estrada, in office for nearly 28 months, denies the charges and portrays himself as a lonely hero struggling against the odds to overcome his powerful foes.

“This is just like the movies,” he told a group of former squatters who recently moved into new government-built housing. “In the movies, especially my movies, the good guy always gets beaten up and defeated but he does not give up. He fights to the end and eventually wins.”

Among those opposing Estrada is former President Corazon Aquino, who called on him to take a leave of absence while the charges are investigated.

Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the daughter of former President Diosdado Macapagal, distanced herself from Estrada by resigning her Cabinet post as secretary of social welfare. She told reporters Thursday that she will lead an opposition coalition aimed at restoring “confidence” in the government.

“The deeper the economy goes into crisis, the more difficult the recovery will be,” the vice president said. “What we want to do is change the character of our politics.”

By character, she means Estrada, who openly admits that he drinks and gambles and has fathered 11 children with seven women, at least one of whom he married.

Gov. Singson, who startled the nation by turning against Estrada last week, broadened his allegations by claiming that the president had ordered the 1992 kidnapping and killing of two women connected with the notorious Red Scorpion crime gang. The two were on their way to pay their telephone bills when they were abducted and slain near Manila, the capital.

Singson also alleged that Estrada was responsible for the 1995 killings of 11 suspected members of the Kuratong Baleleng gang in Quezon City. Estrada was vice president at the time.

The charge that has attracted the most attention, however, is the governor’s claim that he delivered more than 400 million pesos, the equivalent of $8.2 million, to Estrada as the president’s cut from betting on jueting, an illegal numbers game similar to bingo. Singson also claimed to have given the president the equivalent of $3.2 million in kickbacks from cigarette taxes.

Testifying before members of the Senate, Singson said he personally delivered the money to the president from November 1998 to August 2000 and recorded the payments in a ledger under the code A.S., the initials of Estrada’s best-known film character.

Singson also named others who received payments, including two senators who he said accepted about $2,000 each. After Singson’s revelation, the senators quickly returned the money, saying they thought it had come from the governor’s legal mah-jongg winnings.

Singson said he decided to speak out after the president refused to scrap plans to grant a legal bingo franchise in Ilocos Sur, the governor’s province. Legal bingo would greatly reduce the governor’s profits from jueting.

Estrada, hinting that he was the victim of blackmail, has said Singson was pressuring him to put a lid on an ongoing investigation into the governor’s alleged embezzlement of public funds.

A scandal over illegal betting comes as no surprise in the Philippines, where gambling is a national pastime.

Betting starts even before birth, with wagers placed on whether a newborn will be a boy or a girl. After death, gaming tables are a common feature at wakes.

Children catch spiders, place two on a stick and bet on which one will succeed in wrapping the other in its thread. Adults commonly bet on horse racing, cockfights, jai alai and the final digits of basketball scores.

In a concession to his critics, Estrada ordered the closure Thursday of off-site betting for jai alai and some online gambling.

Estrada, widely known as Erap after another of the popular movie characters he played, has been rallying his supporters this week at campaign-style appearances around Manila. He is under attack, he says, by “rich people who do not want to share the country’s wealth with the poor.”

“This is not just a battle between the rich and Erap,” the president says. “This is a war between the rich and the poor, the poor who I want to serve.”

On the streets of Manila, opinion regarding the scandal is divided. Air-conditioning technician Roberto de la Cruz, 37, who voted for Estrada, said the scandal is overshadowing the president’s accomplishments, such as building housing and paying off the national debt.

Forcing Estrada from office, he said, would not end corruption in high places. “Whoever occupies the position,” he said, “the system will not change.”

But Dilberto Facinabro, 32, a notary public who conducts business with a typewriter and carbon paper on the hood of his car, said it is time for Estrada to go.

“What is important is that the president must be changed because the country is suffering from an economic crisis,” he said. “The people are suffering. Only the politicians and the wealthy are enjoying the happy life.”