Estrada's gambling scam: A RP battle of principles
Estrada's gambling scam: A RP battle of principles
By Chua Huck Cheng
SINGAPORE: There is a strange, twilight-zone quality to the goings-on in the Philippines these past few days.
True to the macho image he has of himself, President Joseph Estrada is fending off the US$11-million pay-off allegations made against him by a provincial governor, Luis Singson.
But each time Estrada throws a punch -- for instance, insinuating that friends and associates of former Presidents Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos have had improper dealings with government banks -- he diminishes bit by bit the office of the President.
That runs counter to the survival handbook that says big guys don't fight dirt with dirt. They wear down those who mean harm with lordly contempt, after having made the standard denials.
Sadly, in this case, even Estrada's most abiding supporters do not think he has the stature to pull that off. He fights the only way he knows how, which is at gut level.
The bottom line is that the media, the Church, influential retired politicians, business leaders and the chattering classes are all baying for his blood. They think Estrada, who is never one of them, is bad for the country.
What a ball the elite must be having in Manila.
The matrons of Forbes Park with their morning coffee, hauling their unseemly President over the coals.
The Makati business set, sensing the tide is about to turn, pouring on the vitriol.
Opposition politicians smacking their lips in vengeful delight for the rout they received in the congressional elections.
The greatest moral force for Estrada's departure from office -- by falling on his sword -- has been supplied by two people, Aquino and Jaime Cardinal Sin, the Archbishop of Manila.
Aquino is the virtual patron saint of the Philippines' movement for the acclamation of the righteous. She has enormous prestige as the person who, with little practice and lots of courage, did what she could to cleanse the system of Marcos toxins.
She chose the Edsa Shrine, commemorating the Edsa revolution of 1986 which drove President Ferdinand Marcos from office, to ask that Estrada make the "supreme self-sacrifice" of resigning his office.
It was the "sordid company" he kept which had brought the country to such a pass, she said.
This was strong language, but Cardinal Sin's admonition of the Philippine nation topped that.
"May we all strike our breasts and bow our heads in shame because we have brought all this upon ourselves. We have no one to blame but ourselves for being complacent, easy-going and uncaring."
Filipinos would not like what that says of their personality, but would they have the moral conviction to take on their principle churchman?
The prelate is the conscience of the Philippines, as he was when leading the crusade to rid the country of the Marcos scourge.
In asking Estrada to do the "heroic" thing, regardless of guilt or innocence, Cardinal Sin was articulating an incontrovertible truism about his country: The people deserve the leaders they get.
The reality check for Estrada is this: The miasma of dishonor is so strong that, to thinking Filipinos, it hardly matters anymore whether he did or did not take the gaming bribes of $8.6 million and the $2.8-million cut of the tobacco tax.
This is the people's real trauma.
But out in the provinces and the slum quarters of the metropolitan areas of Luzon, the man they call Erap has substantial support. He is one of them.
It was on their backs that Estrada won the presidency in 1998 with a showing that surprised the pundits. In another assault Estrada-style, he had spoken of offering them titles to government land the state did not have a use for.
He must pray that the value of the peso does not fall much further. It has dipped 20 percent against the U.S. dollar since the beginning of the year.
Interest rates are rising and the Asian Development Bank, with its Manila headquarters, warned that the fundamentals supporting the economy would be lost if the morality crisis did not have a clear conclusion.
If that happens, rising prices of food, petrol and transport, which would hurt the masses most, could alter the political scenario.
Estrada will not be troubled by the congressional move to impeach him, as the government majority in both chambers can see off the threat.
Neither has he said anything about suing Governor Singson. That has obvious courtroom risks, but his handlers will probably plead gravitas and say it is beneath the President to take just any scallywag to court.
Why, Singson himself has allegedly been implicated!
Estrada means to ride out the storm, from all indications. But if the people take a hand, as happened in 1986, he might rue the day he ever became a movie actor.
The writer is a Straits Times leader writer (huck@sph.com.sg).
-- The Straits Times/Asia News Network