PROFILE: Ousted Philippine president Estrada fights for redemption

By John Grafilo May 5, 2010, 6:07 GMT

Manila - Former Philippine president Joseph Estrada did not hide his excitement when a survey conducted two weeks before the presidential elections on May 10 showed him tied for second place with real-estate magnate Manuel Villar.

'As I told you, I will give them the surprise of their lives,' he said, vowing to reach out to more voters in the final days of the campaign.

Estrada - known by his nickname Erap, the Filipono word for friend spelled backwards - predicted that he and frontrunner Benigno Aquino III would battle it out for the presidency come election day.

The 73-year-old former action movie star said he expected his loyal supporters - millions of poor people in slum areas - to vote for him.

'They have proven that they are loyal to me. They are just quiet,' he added.

Margaux Salcedo, Estrada's spokeswoman, said that in the remaining days of the campaign, the former president will show the people that he is still the best man to rehabilitate the country after President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's tumultuous nine-year rule.

'In the next few days we hope to establish that the change that the Liberal Party (of rival Aquino) proposes is empty without a leader with proven competence, political will and commitment to the masses,' she said.

Indeed, among the nine candidates for president, Estrada has the most experience of holding office, having served as town mayor, senator, vice president and two years as president.

In 1998, Estrada was elected as president of the Philippines by a landslide, with the biggest-ever lead over his closest rival.

But in January 2001, he was ousted by a military-backed mass uprising over allegations of large-scale corruption and incompetence.

He was detained from April 2001 and eventually convicted in 2007 of plunder by the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but Arroyo pardoned him a few days after his conviction.

A known womanizer and heavy drinker, Estrada vowed to continue his pro-poor programmes, which were stopped after his ouster from office. His slogan promises that 'if there is Erap, there is prosperity.'

Estrada said that once elected to office he would focus on poverty alleviation, peace and order, food security and addressing graft and corruption.

Political analysts, however, do not share Estrada's optimism that he would win this time.

Benito Lim, a political science professor at the Ateneo De Manila University, said Estrada was already past his prime and appeared to be living in a time warp.

'He said that if elected he is just going to continue the programmes during his previous term, he must have forgotten that 10 years have passed and the world economy has changed and the Philippine economy has changed. We have new problems,' he said.

Lim also doubted whether Estrada could command the loyalty of the country's impoverished millions.

'He still has loyal followers but this is not enough to propel him to presidency,' he said.

Jun Salipsip, president of the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, a local think tank, said he believed that Estrada was running merely to clear his name.

'I think he just wanted reassurance from the public that they still love him,' he said. 'I think he just wanted redemption from the embarrassment he suffered due to his conviction.'