Former President Joseph Estrada and Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay during their declaration to run in the 2010 elections. (Photo by KJ ROSALES)

There is no question about it. Former President Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada still possesses the charisma that had been his passport to the Palace by the River a decade ago. It shows.

This magnetism lured hundreds of people to withstand the scourging heat and discomfort just to have a glimpse of him at his official proclamation in front of the Sto. Niño Church at the heart of Tondo.

Erap, a text twist word with ‘Pare’ as its etymology which is a contraction of “Kumpare,” is undoubtedly, despite his conviction as a plunderer, still popular with the masses as depicted by the outpouring of  support for him on Wednesday.

As an avid text twister and a scrabble player, there are several four letter words you can draw from Erap. There’s reap, pare (as in pare down), rape and pear. And of course, though not acceptable in the scrabble board, pera -- money! 

His drumbeaters and spin doctors are banking on this allure to return him to the Palace by the River as the new Revered Resident this coming year. The road ahead, however, is rough and bumpy with large, legal pot holes, which could mire Erap’s Palace homecoming.

I am no legal luminary. I will leave that to the authorities and the legal counsels to debate on and tweak the facts, whichever side they are in. But, let me try to dissect the issue from a layman’s perspective.

The Hope

One way of demystifying his so-called charm is by looking at Erap not as a person, whose political career was cut short by the plunder case, but rather as somebody whom one can identify with. Erap, unlike the other so-called presidentiables, except for Senator Manny Villar, was born and raised in the slums of Tondo. The long and short of it, for the masses, Erap is synonymous with hope. 

Manang Sally, my household mate whom I inherited from my mom, gave me a short and curt reply when I asked her preference among the presidentiables. “I want Erap to become president again. I will vote for him.”

Curious, I probed for enlightenment. “In our place, people like him because of his pronouncement, his commitment that once back in Malacañang he would push for the legalization of jueteng,” explained Manang Sally.

Despite the crackdown on jueteng, the illegal numbers game remains to be the favorite past time of the masses. It’s a key to riches without going through the rigors of sweating it out through hard labor.

Jueteng apparently started off in China. It is an amalgamation of two words: jue, which means “flower,” and teng, which means bet. Its acceptance and attractiveness cut across all social strata -- the moneyed, who have the zest for further accumulation, and, of course, the poor sector.

The game is a bit complicated for you and me, who have yet to try betting. But, the way I understood the mechanics from Manang Sally, one selects two numbers from one to 37 and the winning number is determined by selecting a pair numbers from the two sets of 37 numbered balls. A peso bet wins P700. Despite the so-called small probability of winning (based on Wikipedia - the odds are  one is to 1,369), the payout is bountiful. The amount of winning is directly proportional to the amount of wager. The bigger the bet, the bigger the winning.  

“Because of jueteng, I will definitely vote for Erap. I will even campaign for him,” Manang Sally quips.

It appears like Erap’s downfall then would be his comeback vehicle.

‘Til our next filibustering.

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