Estrada’s Impeachment Trial in Limbo

The Philippine Senate indefinitely adjourned the impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada on Wednesday as tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand the president’s resignation.

The Senate, which had narrowly voted not to accept new evidence of alleged payoffs to the president, concluded that it couldn’t continue the impeachment case after all 11 prosecutors resigned in protest over Tuesday’s vote.

The decision to suspend the hearing handed Estrada a significant victory as he fights to keep his job in the face of allegations that he accepted at least $74 million in illegal payments.

To survive, he must now weather nearly continuous protests led by prominent foes, including former Presidents Corazon Aquino and Fidel V. Ramos, Cardinal Jaime Sin and Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who would take over if Estrada left office before the end of his term in 2004.

Crowds estimated at between 30,000 and 100,000 gathered in Manila to call on the president to step down. Some schools were shut, and some businesses gave their workers time off to attend the rally. For the second day in a row, crowds continued the protest well past midnight.

“The time is up. Resign,” said Sin, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Manila, who helped lead the 1986 “people’s power” protests that toppled then-President Ferdinand E. Marcos. “I said if he is elected president, he would be a disaster. Now, you see.”

Estrada, a popular star of action movies who was elected president in 1998, was accused last year of accepting $11 million in illegal gambling profits and cigarette tax revenues. The charges prompted the House of Representatives to impeach the president and take the matter to trial before the 22-member Senate.

With the senators acting as judges and members of the House of Representatives acting as prosecutors, witnesses brought to light new evidence alleging that Estrada received an additional $63.5 million and deposited it in a bank account under the false name of Jose Velarde.

Prosecutors were on the verge of submitting bank records of the Jose Velarde account as evidence Tuesday when Estrada supporters in the Senate put the matter to a vote. By an 11-10 margin, the senators voted not to unseal the records. One member was absent.

The ballot made it clear that Estrada has enough support in the Senate to survive a vote to remove him from office, which must pass by two-thirds.

Recognizing that they couldn’t prevail, the prosecutors resigned even before Estrada presented his defense, which was scheduled to begin next week.

“What happened was a tragic event in the nation’s quest for justice,” said Rep. Roan Libarios, one of the prosecutors who quit. “It is very clear that for us to participate further would lend credibility to what appears to be a charade.”

On Wednesday, the Pinoy Times newspaper reported that it had received copies of the Velarde bank records and that they show that dozens of checks made out to cash were deposited in the account in 1999 and 2000.

Some of the payments came from Estrada cronies, it said. The largest deposit was nearly $4 million, the smallest about $10,000.

Earlier in the trial, a bank official testified that she had seen Estrada sign “Jose Velarde” on documents for the account.

Some suggest that Estrada used his alleged wealth to influence enough votes in the Senate to prevent the bank information from being admitted at the impeachment hearing, although no evidence of bribery has surfaced.

“This is a grand conspiracy between Malacanang [the presidential palace] and the 11 senators,” said an angry Rep. Joker Arroyo, another prosecutor who resigned.

Leaders of the move to oust Estrada hope that protests in the style of the 1986 revolt will topple him. Many businesses oppose Estrada, contending that he is largely responsible for the country’s plunging stock market and peso, which hit a record low this week.

But one thing lacking this time is military support for a change in government. Members of the Philippines’ top brass have said they will remain neutral--a decision that helps Estrada most of all.

“We will stay in the barracks and will not participate in the political scene,” Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado said. “We will retain the neutrality of the military.”