By Raissa Robles

When Joseph Estrada won his first best actor trophy for “Markang
Rehas” (Jailbird) at 25, he had no idea such play-acting would come in
handy 39 years later.

Fantasy and reality have often collided in Estrada’s world. It was
his fantasy way back in 1987 to be elected president of the Philippine
Republic. It took him 11 years to shape that into reality.

But it was never part of the action star’s reality to be booted out of
office 31 months later; put under detention for six years; sentenced
to life imprisonment for economic plunder; then just as suddenly
pardoned and freed by the president a month later.

Ex-President Joseph Estrada - photo by Raissa Robles ©

It has now been two years since he walked out of detention. In those
two years Estrada has worked to make his fantasy of returning to the
presidency come true by visiting 65 out of 81 provinces.

Finally last October 21, the 72-year-old Estrada announced before a
mammoth crowd in Manila’s poverty-stricken district of Tondo that he
was running again for president in order “to give back hope to the
nation’s poor.”

“This fight is the last fight in the movie of my life,” he told the
adoring crowd that gathered even as a super typhoon speeding towards
northern Luzon threatened to dump rain on his rally.

In the same speech, Estrada elaborated on his favorite topic – that of
lambasting the nation’s business elite who he said conspired with the
military and the middle class to ease him out in 2001. The pro-Estrada
Daily Tribune newspaper reported the next day that his campaign speech
“clearly pitted the poor against the elite, which resonated among the
poor in the audience.”

Estrada, however, seems to tailor his rhetoric to his type of
audience. He personally told Asian Dragon magazine on the eve of his
announcement in Tondo that he wasn’t against the entire business
community. In fact, he said, businessmen would play a key supporting
role in an Estrada presidency.

“Oh yes,” he said, when asked if he would try to get the support of
the business community in 2010. “I need the businessmen so we can help
the poor. Without the businessmen how can we help our poor people?” He
said he intends to devote most of the tax money to social services and
basic education for the poor.

“I will encourage businessmen to do business in our country,” he said
in flawless English. It was his campaign gimmick back in 1998 to mock
his use of English. This time around, Estrada spoke fluently and in a
serious tone.

He said those “oligarchs” who once tried to remove him, he was
“neither ignoring them or courting their support.”

“I’m just going direct to the people – the masa (masses). Mahirap
magakaroon ng utang na loob sa kanila. (It’s hard to owe a debt of
gratitude to businessmen.)”

He had disclosed earlier that day, during an anti-poverty forum of the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Foreign
Correspondents Association of the Philippines (Focap), that some
businessmen once tried to lean on him to favor their businesses.

Another group of businessmen also tried to bribe him with US$14
million dollars in exchange for backing a power plant contract with
Argentinian firm Impsa but he rejected the money, he said.

He agreed with the premise that the country continues to be ruled by a
political and economic elite: “I have a personal experience when I was
president. These giant corporations owned by the elite, in my first
three months in office, they want me to approve their petition to
increase their water rate by 80%, which I rejected.”

“I told them – ‘Erap pampahirap’ (Erap makes the poor poorer), the
people might shout.”

He said businessmen ought to play their own game with all the
attendant risks. “As far as I’m concerned business is a gamble.” This
was why “I have removed all these sovereign guarantees on all private
contracts. These big contractors, the elite are controlling these big
contracts.”

“I rejected all…(and) that is why maybe it caused (me) my
presidency. These elite jointly conspired to remove me. They owned the
radio, the TV, they ganged up on me,” he said, obviously referring to
the broadcasting network owned by the Lopez family.

Despite this bad experience with big business, Estrada told Asian
Dragon magazine that the next time he’s president, “I will not only
encourage businessmen, I’ll help them (because) the government cannot
exist without the businessmen.”

He said he would level the playing field for them “by seeing to it
that there is no corruption in government. That is giving the
businessmen a level playing field. There are all kinds of the business
sector, not only local but also foreign. I want foreign investors to
come here.”

Asked why the business community should support his comeback, he said:
“I could assure them that there will be no graft and corruption in
government. You can see that not one of my cabinet members was ever
involved in any anomalies in government, in any contracts. Not one of
them was involved in any scam, that I’m very proud of.”

Looking back at what actually happened during his brief presidency, it
was Estrada’s own missteps that turned away an already wary business
community.

Bloomberg wire service reported that “in his first official act, the
new president (Estrada) fired Richard Gordon as chairman of the Subic
Bay freeport, a former US naval base that was transformed into a
symbol of the country’s economic renaissance. Mr Gordon defied the
order and barricaded himself inside the base, leading to a two-month
standoff that briefly turned violent.”

“Television footage of riot police trying to break through barbed-wire
barriers has stuck in the minds of investors,” Bloomberg said.
During UNDP’s anti-poverty forum, Estrada surprised Gordon by suddenly
offering his handshake.

Estrada, whose nickname “Erap” means buddy, paid a heavy price for
Gordon’s defiance. The euphoria following Estrada’s landslide win by
10.7 million votes in a 10-way race – where his closest rival,
lawmaker Jose De Venecia, got only 4.3 million votes – was all but
gone three months later.

The country’s economic indicators – which measures the health of any
presidency – all went bad. The peso weakened against the dollar. The
benchmark 30-share stock index suffered a six-year drop. And Estrada
had to postpone a much-needed US$1 billion international bond offer as
investors demanded a doubling of the yield premium on Philippine bonds
maturing in 2008.

Stockbrokers started calling the higher risk of doing business in the
Philippines as the “Erap premium”.

His feud with Gordon was soon followed four months later by a
financial scandal. Estrada witnessed the signing of an “allegedly
lopsided” power plant contract that favored the Argentinian firm
IMPSA.

Estrada angrily sued Manila Times newspaper for libel for calling him
the “godfather” of a scam.

By the 19th month of Estrada’s presidency, foreign investors had
nearly erased Manila from their route. In desperation, some 60 foreign
fund managers took the unprecedented step of staging a bull session
with him. They told him bluntly he had to stop drinking with his
so-called “midnight cabinet” and listening to businessmen Dante Tan
and Mark Jimenez, whom they blamed for the steep drop in the stock
market.

Still reeling from an unraveling economy, the nation was shocked by a
fresh set of scandals alleging that top businessmen were building
mansions for Estrada’s mistresses and he was receiving illegal
gambling payoffs.

Before a year was out, Estrada was also out.

All that is now in the past, according to Estrada. Over a year ago,
still fresh from detention, he invited Focap members to lunch in his
Greenhills mansion. He confided then that he planned to make a movie
and stage a political comeback.

“I want to leave a legacy, that they have all committed wrong in
ousting me as president,” he said.  (I wrote this feature for Asian Dragon magazine, which allowed me to put it up on my site.)