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January 22, 2001, Seattle Times / Chicago Tribune, Estrada vows he will return, by Uli Schmetzer,

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Estrada

January 22, 2001, Seattle Times / Chicago Tribune, Estrada vows he will return, by Uli Schmetzer, 

MANILA - Former Philippines President Joseph Estrada, forced out of office by a bloodless people's revolt, insisted in a letter to the Senate yesterday that he had given up power only "temporarily" and would return.

In a country confused by the legal mechanics of the swift transfer of power to his vice president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Estrada's letter sparked rumors that his followers - backed by maverick units of the armed forces - are planning a counterstrike.

Estrada became politically isolated last week after the chiefs of the police and the armed forces announced they could no longer support his presidency. He surrendered his office in the face of massive demonstrations.

After the success of the popular revolt, military officials said on Sunday there had been a contingency plan in place for some months to oust Estrada.

Yesterday, Arroyo said she would keep military chief Angelo Reyes and Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado in their positions. Both had been quick to support her.

"I don't have any grandiose plans," she said. "I don't want to be a great president but a good president. So help me, please."

As Arroyo began to name her Cabinet, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel announced that he had received a letter from Estrada stating that he gave up power only temporarily.

"I am unable to exercise the powers and duties of my office," the letter read. "By operation of law and the constitution, the vice president shall be the acting president."

"It looks like the basis for a constitutional challenge is being laid down by this letter," Pimentel said.

Although Arroyo's aides dismissed the letter as a last "macho boast," the new president could be embroiled in a constitutional crisis if Estrada challenges the power of the Supreme Court, which stripped him of office in an unexpected move that remains open to debate. Estrada did not resign.

Under the Philippine constitution, an incapacitated president can reassume the presidency if he states he is capable. Estrada still commands considerable support among the country's poor, who see him as a champion of the underprivileged, like the heroes he played in the movies.

But government sources said his challenge may be a shrewd lever to negotiate immunity from prosecution.

Although the chances for a comeback by Estrada are slim, his challenge to the legality of the power transfer could continue to weaken a country whose currency and stock markets plunged during the past months as more and more witnesses testified about his extravagances and graft. Shares on the Philippine stock market rose by nearly 18 percent yesterday, and the value of the peso rose against the U.S. dollar.

In a country short on memory but long on compassion, disgraced leaders such as Imelda Marcos, the extrovert wife of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, have been able to rehabilitate their political careers. She was elected to the House of Representatives while a government agency tried in vain to recover some of the billion-dollar fortune she and her husband had taken out of the country.

An aide to Estrada said he held a tearful weekend party at his home during which "everyone had a good cry."

The aide told the media that the ousted president was so depressed during his last hours in the palace that his friends and relatives worried he might commit suicide.

Such stories in the Philippines have an effect.

"I feel sorry for him," said a street cleaner called Boy Alvarez. "We all make mistakes and must be forgiven. Maybe he has learned his lesson."

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