Five years later, Erap still loved by the poor

Five years after being deposed as president in a military-backed revolt, action film star turned politician Joseph Estrada is still admired by the country’s poor as one of their own.

Despite facing charges he stole some P4 billion of public money during his term, he is still rated in opinion polls as the country’s most popular president since the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos 20 years ago.

Estrada, who turns 69 on April 19, was elected the country’s 13th president in 1998 with a margin of six million votes, the highest for any president in the country. He worked hard to endear himself to the Filipino people.

For ordinary Filipinos, the wisecracking former actor was one of them. But to the elite he was something of a loose cannon.

He relied heavily on personalities with shady pasts and made crucial policy decision with his "midnight Cabinet" — a reference to his drinking buddies who often visited him at Malacañang late at night.

Big business spurned him while the Roman Catholic Church openly criticized him for bad habits, including his womanizing — Estrada has acknowledged several children out of wedlock.

The black sheep of 10 children of a Manila sanitation engineer, Estrada had studied to become a civil engineer only to drop out and seek his fortune in the movies.

He began as an extra in 1957, to the horror of his conservative parents who forbade the use of the family name.

He took up the name "Estrada" and was given minor roles until he found his niche playing neighborhood toughies, squatter, jeepney driver, rebel and farmer.

The roles were always lower class Filipinos who spoke funny, ungrammatical English but who were good at avenging injustice and had a way with women.

In 1969, he launched his political career, using his showbiz fame to rise from town mayor to senator and then vice president to President Fidel Ramos in 1992.

But despite accolades in the political scene and receiving awards as an outstanding town mayor in the 1970s, Estrada had always been shunned by the elite.

When he announced his bid for the presidency in 1998, the upper class were alarmed and, if his supporters are to be believed, began plotting his downfall.

Estrada knew he had some major obstacles in his path but he played the gallery — the vast majority of the country’s poor who saw Estrada as one of them.

But his lifestyle and shadowy group of friends would later bring him down, one of whom later accused him of taking millions of pesos in bribes from illegal gambling lords and receiving kickbacks from excise taxes.

He was impeached by Congress in late 2000, but his trial broke down in January 2001, with street protests in Manila culminating in a military-backed popular revolt that toppled him on January 20.

Five years on, surveys show that Estrada’s popularity has not dimmed while his chief foe and replacement Gloria Arroyo has seen her support drastically drop.

Ever the populist, his aides say there is "no rancor" in his heart and that Estrada will seek reconciliation once cleared.

"My detention has been worth every second if only to prove my innocence to those who truly matter most: my countrymen," Estrada said. — AFP