Word: estrada
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Estrada, known popularly as Erap, had never been popular among the gentrified élite, those wealthy descendants of Spanish colonialists who comprised the well-heeled Makati and Forbes Park power brokers. They viewed Estrada, who boasted about his middle-class origins and was proud of his capacious appetites, as something of a parvenu, an uncouth impostor in the palace. His clique of shady Chinese business cronies and provincial politicians was regarded as proof that Estrada was a second-rater, unfit to rule and certainly not one to act in the best interests of the Philippines. And they had their reasons...
...principal parties in People Power II were by Saturday morning comfortably ensconced at EDSA and preparing to march on the palace if Estrada did not honor the deadline to resign. The President's proposal: a call for snap elections in May that he promised not to contest. It met with immediate dismissal from Arroyo and her supporters, who were quick to point out that the constitution was clear on the terms of the Vice President's succession. By holding elections, he hoped to prove that he and his coalition were still popular among the country's poor. Military and civilian...
...will be a tough challenge for Arroyo, who must now contend with the possibility that any unpopular legislation, controversial executive decision or economic reversal could mean another mass protest and the possibility of yet more People Power. Remember, Estrada - however cynically - was acting within the framework of the law and under the terms called for by the impeachment proceedings. Had he been declared guilty, he would have had to go. The troubling point remains that he had not been convicted. To be sure, the evidence had been going against him - until the court ruled that the envelope could...
...parting letter, Estrada wished his successor well. However, in a haunting postscript he signaled that, like reruns of his old films, Filipinos may not have seen the last of him. "I continue to have strong and serious doubts about the legality of the swearing in of the Vice President," he wrote. Estrada, for all the wrong reasons, had said what really matters: a democracy that doesn't respect the law will always be vulnerable...
...moving into to her old bedroom in MalacaNang Palace, the presidential residence.) Though 53 years old, she resembles a delicate ingEnue, a plus in the appearance-crazy Philippines. A Ph.D. in economics gives great gravitas. In office, Arroyo intends to be the reverse image of her disgraced predecessor, Joseph Estrada: brainy, focused and, well, sober. "I won't be drinking with my friends," she tells Time...