Word: estrada
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Controversy hasn't entirely escaped the new President. In October, when Estrada was accused of taking a cut of proceeds from an illegal gambling racket known as jueteng, Arroyo got loudly questioned about her own personal connection with Bong Pineda, an alleged provincial jueteng boss. Arroyo is godmother to one of Pineda's sons. She flatly denies any impropriety, saying she doesn't associate with Pineda or his crowd. "I don't drink with them," she tells Time. "I don't play mah-jongg with them." When she was asked to be godmother, she says she got counsel from Jaime...
Many Filipinos will be proud that last week's mass display of public indignation rid them of a President who was none-too-bright, unreliable after lunch and, if the testimony in Joseph Estrada's Senate trial is true, had the moral scruples of a two-bit Tondo hustler. But as with Woodstock II (or III), the sequel to 1986's People Power revolution is an echo with a hollow yet distinctly nasty tone. Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos cast presidential no-confidence votes with their feet - an act that doubled as an impromptu referendum on their constitution...
There are several ways to explain last week's popular putsch. The first is that Filipinos are exceedingly impatient. Throughout the Senate trial, it was apparent that Estrada retained enough clout, and popular support, to avoid being removed from office. But instead of allowing him to prevail in these tainted hearings, after which the democratic system could digest the votes of the various Senators and eventually throw them out of office, Filipinos decided to take to the streets. But this argument is flawed: Filipinos in fact are among the most patient people in Asia. The original People Power revolution...
...more disturbing, albeit most plausible, theory of what transpired involves a conspiracy. As a macho former movie star, Estrada was held in contempt by Manila's business aristocracy. Mrs. Aquino is from landed gentry. Cardinal Sin has an understandable aversion to a President who boasts of mistresses and illegitimate offspring. In the mid-'80s, the Elite and the Church banded together to help organize Manila's masses against Marcos, a moment of triumph they have never forgotten. The fact that a high percentage of Filipinos loved Estrada was exasperating. Even more inconvenient was his grip on the Senate, which seemed...
...when circumstances changed, so, apparently, did those values. On the crowded pavement of EDSA last week, Aquino and Ramos urged Filipinos to disregard the constitution - not because it was flawed, but because it wasn't getting rid of Estrada quickly enough. Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, another member of the Elite, referred to herself as Commander in Chief even before Estrada resigned - and then took the presidential oath, vowing to uphold the constitution...