The Enigma Of Estrada

WHY does President Joseph Ejercito Estrada always wear a wristband on his right hand? According to a popular Filipino joke, it's to help him remember which of his hands is the right. A deluge of similar mock-trivia has become the national pastime ever since Estrada took over the highest post in the Philippines. And the President has little choice but to take these figments of mischievous public imagination gamely. The real reason for the famous wristband that has accompanied Estrada through the years of his political career—as mayor, senator, vice-president and now the president of the Philippines—is to conceal a keloid which the President had received from a sword during a movie scene rehearsal.

For, the President of the Philippines started his public life as an actor back in the '60s. The young Estrada quickly made headway in Manila's celluloid business after winning a string of prestigious acting awards for his roles as worker and defender of the poor. The reason: a majority of Filipinos felt, and continue to feel, that this cinematic persona could not have been acted out so well without any real-life feelings and experiences from the performer himself. Consequently, his popularity shot up and he was endearingly called 'Erap'—which in Filipino slang is the word for 'a friend' turned backwards. And Estrada, a college dropout, worked shrewdly on that mass sentiment to his advantage.

So, when the Robin Hood of Philippine movies shifted career from show biz to politics, it was a relatively smooth transition, almost waiting to happen. Estrada reigned over his hometown San Juan as mayor for years, even at the height of the dictatorship of former President Marcos. After Marcos was deposed in a bloodless revolt in 1986, Estrada was one of the few politicians identified with the former dictator who stayed on in power. In 1987, he even ran for the Senate and won easily. Which was when his campaign strategists realised that, with the right packaging, the former actor could run for the nation's highest office.

And he did. In 1992, he debuted in the race for the top and rattled the presidential hopefuls. One of them was the then defence secretary Fidel Ramos, the military man, who stood by President Corazon Aquino when she was besieged by a series of attempted coup d'etats. Estrada backed out of the presidential sweepstakes, but while Ramos just managed to muster enough votes to become President in 1992, Estrada won the vice-presidentship by an overwhelming margin.

The results only whetted Estrada's appetite for power. He did not hide his intention to run for the presidency after the end of Ramos' term in 1998. But in the intervening six years, he had to claw his way through the most hard-fought battle of his political career. At first, his crime-busting agency—the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission, created by Ramos—was accused of being involved in the extra-judicial killings of kidnapping suspects. As 1998 drew closer, an avalanche of more damaging critiques cropped up against him. He was ridiculed for being intellectually deviant, a womaniser, a gambler, a sick alcoholic. The implication: Estrada was not qualified to rule the Philippines and might even undo the six-year efforts of the Ramos government in rebuilding the economy.

Estrada, for one, makes no claims of being as brilliant as his predecessors. President Marcos was a top-notcher in the bar even if he only studied inside prison. President Aquino's credentials—an academic stint in the US—made her credible before the international community. Erap's publicists, on the other hand, once released a book attributing him as author, though it contained nothing but blank pages! No text. No graphics. No comics. Another book on grammatical errors in English was ascribed to Estrada. He also snubbed invitations to appear on television debates with other presidential candidates.

On charges of being a womaniser, the former actor doesn't deny his fondness for the other sex, but insists he has only one wife who is a doctor. Sources say he has children from four women but that since he has been a good provider to them, no one wants to cry foul. His philandering ways, however, earned the ire of the Catholic Church leaders, whose followers dominate 90 per cent of the Philippine population. He did deny being a gambler, and vowed to veer away from too much alcohol and also to try to lose more weight.

TO counter all the bad publicity, Estrada's campaign refocused on his USP: his perceived closeness with the poor. He eats with poor families in the provinces without spoon and fork, a practice normally seen among the poorest of the Filipinos. He communes with labourers and factory workers. His slogan is 'Erap Para sa Mahirap' or 'Erap for the Poor'. He poses with his wristband as if always on a fighting stance. All of which paved the way for his electoral victory last May. Despite the smear campaign, he got a whopping 90 per cent of the total votes.

The elite, obviously not in favor of his ascendance, find it hard to accept the lavish support he gets from the masses. Senator Aquilino Pimentel offered an explanation: "Much of the people's admiration for Erap may be traced to their identification with his type-casting as the poor boy-hero-against-the-world in Philippine movies. Invariably, Erap's films portrayed him as a destitute but idealistic young man who struggles to make something of himself and to champion the cause of the downtrodden." But Prof Isagani Cruz of the De La Salle University in Manila predicts that Estrada's image can, in time, only boomerang against his presidency. "His campaign made people believe...he is for the poor. But these are blatant lies because he is not pro-poor. All we have is a celluloid image. Is he for real?"

바카라 웹사이트On the way, Estrada tried to learn the tricks of the trade. He appointed a powerhouse Cabinet, most of whom were loyal to him during his vice-presidency and who helped him in his presidential campaign. He retained Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon jr, his former classmate. Siazon, a career diplomat, practically dictates the chief contents of the Estrada foreign policy. One of Estrada's strongest remarks was the condemnation of nuclear proliferation in the light of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests last May. For his first foreign policy speech delivered before the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), he opted to read a longer version of the draft which spells out poverty alleviation, in broad terms translated onto the multilateral arena, as part of his administration's diplomatic thrust.

As a neophyte, he also committed some blunders in foreign policy. He publicly welcomed the visit of Taiwanese economic minister Vincent Siew even though Siazon consistently affirms the one-China policy in favour of Beijing. At a diplomatic reception, he sipped his glass of champagne before it was time to do so.

바카라 웹사이트On the domestic front, the 61-year-old president is quick to appease an audience of C and D classes—those below the poverty line. After three months in the presidency, Estrada gets 93 per cent approval rating from Metro Manila. Indeed, most of the public believes that he can pull the economy out of the Asian crisis. "The most scary of all," says a reporter who has been covering Estrada since his vice-presidential stint, "is that the crowd believes in him. When the media bashed him, people in the provinces were saying that the criticisms are not true. The masses have started to cast doubt on the mass media and blindly follow a politician." In a survey by a research group, a significant 52 per cent in Metro Manila believed Estrada when he squarely blamed Ramos for overspending the national budget, which could result in a US$ 1.7 billion deficit by the end of this year.

The Estrada administration's honeymoon is still on. But warning signs are emerging. The economy is crying for some action on his catchy pro-poor slogan. More than 4.3 million Filipinos are jobless and 30 per cent of them are below the poverty line. And the El Nino drought has depleted the production of rice, the country's staple food, by 14 per cent.

Estrada has not quite been able to copy Ramos' style of hands-on governance. He is heavily reliant on advisors though he enjoys the complete trust of the Filipino people. His challenge now is to keep that trust until the end of his term. "I feel frustrated because what I have promised in the past, I could not fulfill because the problems are too complicated," Estrada said during a recent television interview. The confessional mood, shot through with realism, is classic Estrada. Act II?