Philippine Senate to probe alleged Estrada payoff

Philippine Senate to probe alleged Estrada payoff

MANILA (Reuters): The Philippine Senate said on Thursday it would investigate allegations by a provincial governor that he had regularly handed millions of pesos in payoffs from illegal gambling to President Joseph Estrada.

Senate President Franklin Drilon said in the legislature the charges, which Estrada dismissed, would be referred to a "blue ribbon committee" which looks into irregularities in government.

The allegations were contained in a sworn statement given to reporters by Luis "Chavit" Singson, governor of the northern province of Ilocos Sur and once known as a friend of Estrada.

"I normally collected about 32-35 million pesos ($690,000 to $750,000) a month," Singson said in his statement.

"Out of this amount I personally handed over to President Estrada most of the time in his (presidential palace) office or his other houses ... the amount of five million pesos every 15 days or 10 million pesos every month," Singson said.

Estrada said the allegations were part of a dispute the governor had with a gaming official.

"I will not stoop to that level," Estrada told reporters.

"Let them quarrel. This does not concern me."

Estrada's two years in office have been marked by numerous allegations of corruption and cronyism in his administration, but this is the first time the president has been named personally. Singson said the money came from gambling syndicates running jueteng, an illegal numbers game popular in the Philippines.

He said he had made payments to Estrada from November 1998 until August this year.

In the Senate, minority leader Senator Teofisto Guingona accused Estrada of graft and corruption.

"I accuse Joseph Ejercito Estrada, president of the Republic of the Philippines, of graft and corruption ... of violating his own oath of office to enforce the law," the senator said.

"When he made arrangements to get money from jueteng collections, the same was not only illegal participation in an illegal business, it was also an enforced extraction in exchange for illegal protection accorded to jueteng operators."

The allegations were front-page news in Manila newspapers on Thursday and were a hot topic of discussion on radio programs.

Singson said he feared for his life and that he decided to go public after he was stopped by a large number of armed policemen for a minor traffic violation on Tuesday night. He told reporters it could have been an attempt to silence him.

Presidential Press Secretary Ricardo Puno called Singson's statement "loose charges," stressing that Estrada had issued orders to the police to put an end to illegal gambling.

"In the end what matters is whether these allegations can stand the test of the courts or not," Puno said.