Young senator Alan Cayetano wants to run for president in 2016 or 2022. But former President Joseph Estrada doesn’t think he’s qualified. Look who’s talking?
Is Estrada, popularly called “Erap,” a college dropout, former movie star and politician, qualified to pronounce judgment on other potential candidates for the highest office?
The one and only Erap once hoisted the presidential seal and sat in the presidential seat in Malacanang but blew his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do great things for the country. He got booted out of office by popular clamor in what’s called here as EDSA 2.
How many people — anywhere in the world — get the call to lead a nation? Erap was among the few.
Many outstanding Filipinos never got to be president. Claro Recto, Lorenzo Tanada, Jose Diokno and a few more. Ninoy Aquino, the current president’s father, had a chance and had the prize within grasp, but of course destiny didn’t allow it to happen. Ninoy was shot at the international airport in 1983 during the martial law years of dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
In the academe, the world of business, and among technocrats there have been a number who would have been good chief executives, but they either didn’t want their reputations soiled by politics or they simply didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to jump into the messy fray.
And so, people like Erap had the thicket clear for them. And Erap, persuaded by the whisperings of the cabal around him, jumped in. And, with the teeming masses gladly hoisting him up on their shoulders, he landed in Malacanang in 1998.
Kinda like the character Chauncey Gardner (actually “Chauncey the gardener” but mistaken to be his name) in the film “Being There” who was thought to be wise because of his cryptic murmurings that people thought to be profound and deep in meaning.
Or more close to home (or the office, the movie set) for Erap, kinda like Robert Redford’s character in “The Candidate” who, with good looks, got elected to office and whose first words upon election were a befuddled: “Now what?”
Estrada claims to have an impressive political record: mayor of tiny San Juan, senator, vice president, president (and now mayor of Manila). And he jokes, without any trace of irony, that he’s now “ex” all of those positions and adds “ex-convict” to the list. Erap is so innocent, he can say that without any trace of embarrassment.
So, was Estrada qualified to be president? In his own mind he believes that he was. His fans do too. Others say the contrary.
What Manila Observer will say is that Estrada is the luckiest politician around. The sun, the moon, the stars and all the planets must have been so aligned during his magical run that destiny put him in the presidency. Of course it helped that many Filipino voters are so enamored of matinee idols that they mistake for real-life heroes. And so they indulged him with their votes.
But it would end in personal tragedy for Erap (maybe he doesn’t even see it as one, even today). He would be ousted in 2001 by People Power 2 where hundreds of thousands of Filipinos converged on Manila’s main highway — called EDSA — to demand his ouster.
I had been critical of Estrada’s personal ways and official style of governance. But when the angry throng was on its way to confront him in Malacanang on the fateful day of his ouster I, typical of Filipino sentimentality, was hoping that he would face the crowd and fight for his right to be in Malacanang.
The tableau that came to mind was that of the embattled President Salvador Allende of Chile, elected democratically as Estrada had been, who was in the throes of ouster. But Allende dug in at the presidential palace in Santiago and fought to the end, with his iconic photograph of himself with a submachine gun in his hands. That was how I, without wishing him to die, had wanted Erap to have dealt with his personal siege, do or die. Which would have been more fitting with his supposed macho image.
In any case, now Erap questions Alan Cayetano’s credentials as the latter muses about his dream of becoming president. Does Erap have, to use American street lingo, the cred to say Cayetano (or anybody else) isn’t qualified?
Give credit to Erap: he’s still around while others have faded from the scene. Talk about durability. Talk about lasting power. Erap is a walking, or limping, advertisement for those much-touted, ginseng-rich, stamina drinks.
One last thing. Some commentators say Estrada almost made it back to Malacanang in 2010. Sorry, but not accurate. He did place second to President Aquino but lost by a margin of five million votes. That’s nowhere close to “almost” becoming president again.
Manila Observer’s guess is that Erap is pooh-poohing Cayetano’s qualifications because he’s supporting another candidate. It’s that simple.