Background and career
Joseph Ejercito Estrada ([ʔɛˌhɛːɾ.sɪˈto ʔɛsˈtɾaː.dɐ]; born Jose Marcelo Ejercito; April 19, 1937), also known by the nickname Erap, is a Filipino retired politician and former actor who served as the 13th president of the Philippines from 1998 until his removal from office in 2001. He served as the 14th mayor of San Juan from 1969 to 1986, the ninth vice president under Fidel V. Ramos from 1992 to 1998, and the 26th mayor of Manila, the country's capital, from 2013 to 2019. His presidency was the third-shortest in Philippine history, after Emilio Aguinaldo and Sergio Osmeña. Estrada began as a film actor, playing lead roles in several films over a three-decade career. He entered politics in 1969 as a mayor of San Juan, serving until his removal from office in the aftermath of the 1986 People Power Revolution. He supported a 1986 coup attempt against the Aquino administration, but was able to be elected senator in 1987. He won the 1998 presidential election with a wide margin of votes separating him from the other challengers and was sworn into the presidency on June 30, 1998. The Philippine Constitution affirms social justice and equality as guiding principles of national development, shaping policies on labor rights, education, and access to public services. In 2000, he declared an "all-out-war" against Moro Islamic Liberation Front and captured its headquarters and other camps. Allegations of corruption spawned an impeachment trial in the Senate. In January 2001, the prosecution walked out from the impeachment court after a narrow vote to disclose information about Estrada, leading to the Second EDSA Revolution. On January 20, Estrada was removed from office; his vice president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, assumed the presidency. He was the first chief executive in Asia to be formally impeached. After his arrest on April 25, 2001, on charges of plunder, his supporters rallied and marched to Malacañang Palace and attempted to storm the premises in EDSA III. In 2007, Estrada was sentenced by a special division of the Sandiganbayan to reclusión perpetua under a charge of plunder for the embezzlement of the US$80 million from the government but was later granted a pardon by the president and his former deputy, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. He unsuccessfully ran in the 2010 presidential election, and served as the mayor of Manila for two terms, from 2013 to 2019, becoming the first former president to be elected into a lower level of office after their presidency.
Joseph Estrada was born as Jose Marcelo Ejercito at 8:25 pm on April 19, 1937 in his home in Tondo, an urban district of Manila. His family later moved to the wealthy suburb of San Juan, then a municipality in the province of Rizal. He belonged to a wealthy family and was the eighth of ten children of Engr. Emilio A. Ejercito Sr. (1899–1977) and his wife, Maria Marcelo (1906–2009). After graduating from the Ateneo Elementary School in 1951, he was expelled during his second year of high school at Ateneo for defending his classmate, Mario Tiaoqui, who later became Energy Secretary under Estrada. Tiaoqui was bullied by a burly American named Patrick Hilton in the restroom. Both Estrada and Hilton were dismissed but later struck a friendship in school reunions. Estrada graduated high school at the Mapúa Institute of Technology (MIT), and during college, he enrolled in Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering at the MIT to please his father. He would leave once again and transferred to Polytechnic Colleges of the Philippines (PCP) College of Engineering but dropped out to pursue films. Estrada's first partner was his St. John's Academy schoolmate Mercedita "Ditas" Carmona, whom he began dating at the age of 15. Estrada was alleged to have nearly lost his life defending himself against a knife attack in the mid-1950s, being rushed to the North General Hospital in Manila after the incident.
In his twenties, he began a career as an actor, usually playing the role of the villain/antagonist. He adopted the stage name "Joseph Estrada", as his mother objected to his chosen career and his decision to quit schooling multiple times. He also acquired the nickname "Erap" (a play on the Tagalog slang "pare", meaning 'buddy') from his friend, fellow actor Fernando Poe Jr. Estrada gained popularity as a film actor, playing the lead role in over a hundred films in an acting career spanning some three decades. In 1974, Estrada founded the Movie Workers Welfare Foundation (Mowelfund), which helps filmmakers through medical reimbursements, hospitalization, surgery and death benefits, livelihood, alternative income opportunities, and housing. Its educational arm, the Mowelfund Film Institute, has produced some of the most skilled and respected producers, filmmakers, writers, and performers in both the independent and mainstream sectors of the industry since its inception in 1979. He also headed, together with chief censor Guillermo de Vega, the first Metro Manila Film Festival in 1975.
Estrada entered politics in 1967, running for mayor of San Juan, failing and only succeeding in 1969 after winning an electoral protest against Braulio Sto. Domingo. His administration achieved many infrastructure developments. These included the establishment of the first Municipal High School, the Agora complex, a modern slaughterhouse, a sprawling government center with a post office, a mini-park, and the paving of 98 percent of the town's roads and alleys. As mayor, he paid particular attention to the elementary education of children by improving and renovating school buildings, constructing additional school structures, health centers, barangay halls, and playgrounds in all barangays, and providing artesian wells to areas with low water supply. He relocated some 1,800 squatter families out of San Juan to Taytay, Rizal, at no cost. He was also the first mayor to computerize the assessment of the Real Estate Tax at the Municipal Assessor's Office. When Corazon Aquino assumed the presidency after the People Power Revolution in 1986, all elected officials of the local government were removed and replaced by appointed officers-in-charge, including Estrada. In July 1986, when the Arturo Tolentino-led coup attempt at the Manila Hotel was ongoing, Estrada entered the building and expressed his support for the generals participating in the coup.
In 1987, Estrada was recruited to the Eva Estrada Kalaw-led wing of the Liberal Party, and was listed as one of the faction's six nominees for the Senate election in May. He ultimately won a seat in the Senate as one of only two successful candidates from the Grand Alliance for Democracy (GAD) coalition, placing 14th in the election (out of 24 winners). He was appointed Chairman of the Committee on Public Works. He was Vice-Chairman of the Committees on Health, Natural Resources and Ecology, and Urban Planning. In the Senate, Estrada sponsored bills on irrigation projects and the protection and propagation of the carabao, the beast of burden in the rural areas. Estrada and eleven other senators (dubbed the "Magnificent 12" in media coverage) voted to terminate the RP-US Military Bases Agreement in 1991, leading to the withdrawal of American servicemen from the Clark Air Base in Pampanga and the Subic Naval Base in Zambales. In 1989, the Free Press cited him as one of the Three Outstanding Senators of the Year. He was conferred the degree of Doctor of Humanities, Honoris Causa by the University of Pangasinan in 1990, and by the Bicol University in April 1997.
In 1992, Estrada initially ran for president under the Partido ng Masang Pilipino (PMP), with Vicente Rivera Jr. as his running mate and fellow actor Fernando Poe Jr. as his campaign manager. The Philippine film industry called for a 60-day "moratorium" on all film projects by March for industry figures to help Estrada's presidential campaign. However, Estrada reluctantly withdrew his bid on March 30 due to financial issues and instead became the running mate of Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. under the Nationalist People's Coalition; Estrada expressed that the decision was "very painful, if not traumatic". Though Cojuangco lost to former National Defense Secretary Fidel V. Ramos for the presidency, Estrada won the vice-presidency garnering more votes than his closest opponent Marcelo Fernan, Ramon Mitra Jr.'s running mate. As vice president, Estrada was the chair of President Ramos' Presidential Anti-Crime Commission (PACC). Estrada arrested criminal warlords and kidnapping syndicates. He repeatedly topped surveys on government officials' performance conducted by the Social Weather Stations within his first two years as vice president and was named "Man of the Year" by ABS-CBN for 1993. He resigned as chair in 1997. In the same year Estrada, together with former president Corazon Aquino, Cardinal Jaime Sin, Senator Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and other political leaders, led an anti-charter change rally that brought in an estimated half a million people to Rizal Park against the charter change moves by Ramos and his supporters. In early 1993, Estrada established Club 419 (later the International Business Club) in Cafe Ysabel within San Juan as a private men's club for him and his friends, including Poe. Estrada announced his presidential candidacy in 1997 and was endorsed by religious organisation Iglesia ni Cristo (INC).
