Word: estradas
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...life sentence, it was surprisingly brief. Only six weeks after being convicted of plundering an estimated $15 million from public coffers during his two-year reign, deposed former President of the Philippines Joseph Estrada today walked out of the posh estate where he has been under house arrest, pardoned by the woman who replaced him, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. "There is no substitute for freedom," Estrada told reporters upon his release...
...thought the role of justice would prevail here but really it's a kangaroo court.' JOSEPH ESTRADA, former President of the Philippines, who was sentenced after a six-year trial to life in prison for taking bribes and kickbacks while in office
...current President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was first sworn in after Estrada was deposed in 2001, hopes this will be the end of the matter. Her spokesman Ignacio Bunye appealed for calm on the streets, as the authorities feared mass demonstrations in support of the deposed President. "We hope and pray that the rule of law will prevail," Bunye said. "Meantime, we have a country to run, an economy to grow and a peace to win. We hope that this sad episode in our history will not permanently distract us from this goal...
However, if the Estrada verdict is a victory for her government, it's a Pyrrhic one. Said Benito Lim, a political analyst and professor at the Ateneo de Manila University: "If the government thinks this decision will lead to closure, that is not going to happen. Estrada is appealing his case; this alone will take at least a year. And, in the meantime, he insists he's not guilty. And there are plenty of people that believe...
Meanwhile, Estrada has returned to his country estate, to attend to his ducks and dig the weeds from his vegetable patch. The people of the Philippines have grown used to corruption, says Benito Lim. "I don't know if Estrada or Arroyo are guilty of the allegations made against them," he said. "But I would say that, though the Philippines did not invent graft or corruption, our politicians have turned it into an art form. The problem is we read and hear about it all the time, at many levels of government. And nobody is ever punished for it. Even...