President Estrada not quitting despite threats

President Estrada not quitting despite threats

MANILA (Reuters): Philippine President Joseph Estrada, hardening his stance not to resign despite threats of an impeachment trial, said on Tuesday that opponents demanding he quit over a bribery scandal were hallucinating.

"That's unthinkable," Estrada said. "From the very start I never thought of resigning...never, never, never. Tell them to stop imagining things," Estrada told reporters after speaking to the Marine Corps.

Senior aides said Estrada had toughened on his decision not to resign after a poll showed that many Filipinos wanted him to hang on.

"He will take his chances...let his fate be decided by the impeachment process and we will support him in that," presidential spokesman Ricardo Puno said.

Estrada emphasized his resolve to stay in office during talks with chief critic and former president Fidel Ramos on Monday, national security adviser Alexander Aguirre said.

An opinion survey by leading pollster Social Weather Stations about a week ago showed 44 percent disagreed with calls for Estrada to step down, 29 percent were in favor while 26 percent said they did not know.

The survey indicated 66 percent of 1,200 people polled opposed use of "people power" or massive street protests to force Estrada out of office and 85 percent opposed his removal by means of a coup d'etat.

"This is what I can say, I don't think just because they are holding rallies that I would resign," Aguirre quoted Estrada as telling Ramos. "The peso has strengthened because I am decisive in not resigning. And the people are supporting me not to resign."

Lifestyle

The Estrada-Ramos exchange occurred during a closed-door meeting of the National Security Council where Ramos told Estrada to mend his ways or step down before Christmas.

"President Estrada should first reform himself (by) changing his extravagant lifestyle and his unfocused work ethic," Ramos, seated beside the president, told the meeting, referring to the former movie actor's reputation of being a womanizer and a heavy drinker.

Ramos also urged Estrada to answer allegations that he had received millions of dollars in payoffs from gambling syndicates running underground lotteries.

"If you cannot do so before mid-December, then resign," Ramos added, in comments released by the presidential palace. Estrada, elected to a six-year term by a landslide in mid-1998, has denied taking bribes from illegal gambling and said he will welcome an impeachment trial in the Senate, which is likely to begin later this month.

Palace officials said Estrada had approved a package of reforms proposed by his ruling coalition in an attempt to halt a severe erosion of his popular support.

One proposal seeks to ban presidential relatives and people with "intimacy or close personal relationship" from any business transactions with the government.

Estrada and his advisers appeared confident he would survive a Senate trial.

"If the Senate is going to convict him, then I think it's duty-bound on his advisers to tell him not to go through the process anymore and go gracefully," Socio-Economic Planning Secretary Felipe Medalla said.

"But the way it looks now, it doesn't seem that that's going to be the end result," Medalla added.

At least 15 of the 22 senators have to vote in favor to remove the president from office. A total of 14 have indicated they are either opposed to the president or are independent.

Analysts say Estrada can count on no more than five senators for support and the rest could vote either way.

Vice-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Estrada's potential successor, is leading the campaign for his ouster and is backed by the powerful church, two former presidents, almost all major business groups and scores of congressmen who have defected from government ranks.

Philippine financial markets, which have slumped sharply since the allegations against Estrada emerged in early October, surged on Monday on hopes he would quit soon.

The stock market's main index gained 0.83 percent on Tuesday in addition to its 16.5 percent leap on Monday. But the peso was weaker, as corporate dollar demand emerged after it gained almost three pesos to about 48 to the dollar by Monday evening. It was weaker than 49 to the dollar by the close of local trading on Tuesday.