Philippine President Joseph Estrada yesterday denied an accusation by the key witness at his impeachment trial that he accepted a check for 5 million pesos (US$100,000) from illegal gambling lords.
"There is no truth to that," Estrada said after distributing presents during a tour of a squatter neighborhood.
The prosecution's key witness, provincial governor Luis Singson, testified Wednesday in the Senate trial that he collected payoffs from an illegal numbers game called jueteng for Estrada and regularly transferred funds to the president, either in cash or through bank checks. He said two presidential sons also received payoffs.
He produced a check and said it would prove the president accepted bribes from gambling bosses. The check, made payable to "cash," was deposited in a bank account of which the number appears on its back. Prosecutors did not immediately indicate who owned the account.
Singson's testimony, however, was placed in question yesterday after House Speaker Arnulfo Fuentebella, a member of Estrada's LAMP party, notified the Senate that the 11 congressmen prosecuting the case had not been authorized to use a private lawyer to question Singson.
The prosecutors, all Estrada critics, were appointed under a previous House speaker who resigned from LAMP after Singson accused the president of corruption in October.
Singson said he channeled more than 400 million pesos (US$8 million) in payoffs from jueteng and 130 million pesos (US$2.6 million) from tobacco taxes to Estrada.
The governor, a former gambling and drinking pal of Estrada's, made the explosive allegations after the two fell out over the granting of a franchise for a legalized form of jueteng called "Bingo 2 Balls" to Singson's political rival in his province of Ilocos Sur.
In his testimony, Singson said Estrada decided to push the new game because the president would earn much more.
Singson showed a diagram he prepared indicating that Estrada would make about 165 million pesos (US$3.3 million) monthly in the new game compared to only about 30 million pesos (US$600,000) in jueteng.
If the Senate decides that the use of a private lawyer to question Singson was improper, it would void Singson's testimony and force new questioning by the congressmen, who are largely unaccustomed to trial duties.
Before any witness could be called yesterday, the sixth day of the trial, Estrada's lawyers questioned whether bank documents already with the Senate should be introduced as evidence.
Among the bank documents is a check for 142 million pesos (US$2.8 million) allegedly used for the purchase of a large mansion in Manila used by one of Estrada's mistresses.
Philippine laws presume that properties acquired beyond a public official's means were acquired through graft.
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