AFTER a trial lasting six years, there was little surprise that disgraced Philippine President Joseph Estrada was found guilty of corruption and embezzling some $80 million during his three years in power. What will raise eyebrows is the life sentence handed down by the court. The dictatorial Marcos regime set the corrupt tone for modern Filipino politics and whatever his other serious failings, Estrada was merely aping the country’s ruling elite which has always been ready to plunder the country’s coffers for its own financial advantage.

Estrada remains under house arrest and is appealing. No doubt he will eventually receive a less severe sentence and thereafter disappear into the political obscurity he so richly deserves. Estrada’s greatest crime was not in fact his theft of state funds. The felony for which he was never tried was the theft and subsequent squandering of the hopes and aspirations of millions of disadvantaged Filipinos who really believed that this larger-than-life movie actor was going to make a difference to their wretched lives.

Estrada was elected president precisely because he was not from the ruling elite. He presented himself as a man of the people and made wide-ranging promises on social, economic and welfare reform, which the poor and middle classes were only too ready to believe. Never has a Filipino entered the presidential palace on such a tidal wave of expectation — and this includes the anticipation with which Corazon Aquino assumed the presidency after Marcos’ overthrow. Estrada was supposed to be different. In the event the only factors that separated him from the self-centered elite who had actually made their fortunes under Marcos was the extent of his vulgarity and incompetence. His presidency rapidly degenerated into a long dissolute party with his cronies, in which important decisions of state were made without any proper consideration.

By any decent measure, Estrada was a disgrace to his office. In his defense, it has been said that like Ronald Reagan, he was an actor called upon to play a part. Unlike the much-admired American president, for Estrada the part of president was far too big and challenging. His lack of political awareness, his inability to appreciate what a pivotal opportunity he had to bring profound change to his country was his greatest failing. Swept to power by a strong popular mandate, he could have challenged the entrenched economic position of the country’s extremely wealthy elite, forced changes to the property laws, tightened the taxation system, cleaned up the police and investigated the many allegations of widespread corruption by past governments. In the event, despite his campaign promises, he did none of these. Instead, mesmerized by the power of his office and like many others, he robbed his country. Had the ruling elite planned to demonstrate the unsuitability of any president chosen from outside its ranks, it could not have come up with a better example than Estrada. This greedy man was therefore never tried for his greatest crime — destroying the high hopes and aspirations of millions of Filipinos who put their trust in him.