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MANILA - Deposed Philippine leader Joseph Estrada on Wednesday vowed to press on with a bid for the presidency despite the entry into the race of the son of late democracy icon Corazon Aquino.
Estrada, 72, derided Senator Benigno Aquino, who earlier on Wednesday declared his candidacy in the May 10, 2010 election, 40 days after his mother's death. He dismissed the younger Aquino as a candidate of the rich.
"It doesn't change a thing. My plan is unchanged," Estrada, 72, told AFP, commenting on the bid by Aquino and another announcement by the mayor of Manila's financial district, Jejomar Binay, that he would no longer run.
"Let us let the people decide, not the elites and the bourgeois.
"All of them are from the rich set," he added, referring to the politicians who turned out at a Manila social club earlier to hear Aquino make his announcement.
Estrada, who was once a popular movie star, won the 1998 presidential election by a landslide but was unseated in a bloodless military coup in 2001 after being impeached for alleged corruption.
He was later arrested, put on trial and sentenced to life in prison in 2007, but served less than a month in jail as he won a pardon from his successor, President Gloria Arroyo.
Aquino's declaration thinned the opposition presidential contenders by two, with not only Binay dropping out but also Senator Manuel Roxas, who endorsed fellow Liberal Party politician Aquino.
Estrada has always denied being corrupt and describes his downfall as a plot by the elite, who saw him as a gatecrasher.
On Thursday he described as "not likely" the prospect of the opposition uniting behind a single candidate to challenge the Arroyo camp's candidate, who has yet to be named.
"We are not from the same party. I have my own," Estrada said.
Arroyo is barred by the constitution from seeking a second six-year term, but Estrada insists he is qualified to seek a full term because he did not finish his mandate in 1998.
- AFP/ir
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