Letter From Manila

The reign of Philippines President Joseph Estrada came to an abrupt end on January 20, when he vacated the presidential palace after being deserted by his key aides and under threat of physical eviction by hundreds of thousands of protesters. Even before his actual departure, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the vice president, was sworn in as his successor. The final crisis of the scandal-plagued presidency had been precipitated a few days earlier, when a majority of the senators acting as jurors in his impeachment trial voted to suppress evidence that Estrada kept billions of pesos in several secret bank accounts. The action triggered what many now call "People Power II," after the popular uprising that ousted the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.

For more than a month before his sudden exit, the impeachment trial of Estrada had transfixed this country of more than 70 million people. He was accused of bribery and corruption, the chief charge being that he had orchestrated a massive nationwide operation to siphon off to himself, his family and his cronies the proceeds of a popular illegal numbers game called jueteng.

Estrada's bête noire was Luis "Chavit" Singson, a provincial governor and former sidekick who said he was assigned by Estrada to be the point man for collecting proceeds from jueteng, which rakes in billions of pesos yearly from lower-class Filipinos. What caused Singson to break with Estrada was his being cut out of the gambling take. An appeal to Estrada did not work, leading Singson to threaten that he would go public about his role. After he managed to foil what he claims was an attempt to assassinate him, Singson, realizing that he had to go for broke, put himself under the protection of Jaime Cardinal Sin and contacted the press. The country has not been the same since.

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