Joseph Estrada, ousted president of the Philippines, is now in jail, awaiting trial on charges of plunder. He stands accused of stealing upward of $80 million during his two-and-a-half years in office.
When the authorities came to collect him from his Manila home, there was a short standoff with his supporters. There are still a large number of people who back the former film star-turned politician. Last week, he celebrated his 64th birthday, surrounded by crowds of poor as whose champion he always presented himself. While he shared birthday cake with some children, many of the onlookers asserted that their hero was the victim of a middle-class conspiracy. Perhaps, they do not appreciate what the former president really did wrong. Corruption is hardly unknown in the Philippines. His real crime, the real reason that, in the end, his people lost patience with him, was that he brought the presidency into disrepute.
When political fixers and power brokers first identified Estrada as a presidential candidate, they were probably much encouraged by the record of another film star president. Ronald Reagan was probably one of the most successful occupants of the US White House. His detractors could claim that he was reading a script written by the big business interests, but the truth is that he made Americans feel good about themselves and about being American. This was where Estrada went wrong. With the exception of his uncritical supporters in the slums, Estrada did not make Filipinos feel good about themselves. After a brief honeymoon period in office, he seemed to have lost sight of his duties and the dignity of his office.
To the dismay of his original backers, he began to import into his life a great many cronies and hangers-on. The presidential quarters came to look less like the heart of government and more like the venue of a nonstop house party. Estrada enjoyed the trappings of power and wanted to share them with courtiers. Stories persist of considerable immorality and inebriate behavior. Staff became appalled at the behavior of their president and before long, news of his conduct inevitably began to reach the general public.
For a while, Estrada was able to reassure the doubters with public appearances and suitably sonorous political statements. But he was ever an actor and, as one actor once told another, “If you can fake sincerity, you can fake anything”.
Even then, had Estrada appeared to be decisive and been seen to act on important matters, his support might not have ebbed away. But the longer he occupied the presidential quarters, the less inclined he seemed to do the work for which he had been elected. Worse, if the allegations against him are true, he began to run the presidential office like a hoodlum’s den, dispensing favors and fixes in return for payola.
It will probably be argued that Estrada’s crimes are insignificant compared with the plundering carried out by his predecessors, the Marcoses. But for all their greed, the Marcoses knew how to keep in touch with their people. Estrada’s behavior quickly established that he never understood the nature of leadership. That is why the normally generous Filipinos lost patience.
