With the current developments at every level on issues confronting the problems of the poor, it was timely that former President Joseph Estrada should make the expected announcement of his candidacy for the 2010 presidential elections.

Unwittingly, Malacañang dramatized it by saying Erap could not do that – run for president of the country – because of constitutional constraint.

Added to the drama was the venue where he made the announcement:

In front of the Sto. Nino Church “nestled,” as described by the Manila Bulletin news team, “in one of Metro Manila's poorest districts where Estrada was born 72 years ago.”

He told the huge Tondo crowd that his decision to seek anew the presidency “only means I am more than prepared to confront the storms along the way as we face a difficult chapter in our nation's history.”

Many presidents before and after him had used that same rhetorics of “confronting the storm” that buffeted the difficult chapter of the country's history but most of them instead created the storms themselves – as if you didn't know.

Estrada himself knows that, of course, more than anybody: He was chased from office and spent seven years in prison and eventually convicted of plunder.

President Gloria Arroyo, however, pardoned him even before he could serve a day in prison after his conviction by the Sandiganbayan.

Despite the indignity of his downfall, however, the former President remained as the rallying symbol of the powerless and the poor who continued to follow him wherever he went.

Immediately after President Arroyo granted him the pardon he went all over the country to renew and rekindle his kinship with them and they responded with alacrity and enthusiasm like true believers. They chanted, “Erap, Erap...”

It is this adulation and the uninhibited display of affection by the very poor that Estrada said firmed up his decision to run again for President.

“You have seen me face and confront the twist and turns of my life , but never abandoned me,” he told them at the announcement of his candidacy, promising anew that “I rise again on a position of the same vote of confidence you gave me in 1998 to deliver the very same pro-poor platform that I sought to implement as your commander-in-chief.”

But it does not matter that Estrada chose to announce his decision to run for President in front of the Sto. Nino Church in Tondo in the presence of his poor followers, the Catholic Church appears unimpressed.

Catholic Bishop's Conference of the Philippines President Archbishop Angel Lagdameo has called on Estrada to retire from politics and give others the chance to lead the country. The call was supported by other Church dignitaries who say Estrada had been given the chance but that he fouled it up, and hopelessly.

Still,the Church leadership clarified that it was leaving it to the electorate to judge for themselves the fitness of the candidates to the positions they seek.

Estrada's decision whether to run o9r not for President in the 2010 elections has been the subject of speculations from the time he was granted pardon by President Arroyo. Many thought that after his conviction for plunder he would be finished as a political leader. But there were second thoughts when he returned to the scene shaking hands and embraced by the people who supported him during his presidency.

It was then that he told opposition leaders to close ranks and support a single opposition candidate for President or he would be forced to declare his own presidential candidacy.

Except for Senator Mar Roxas of the Liberal Party who withdrew from the race in favor of Senator Noynoy Aquino, Erap's warning failed to unnerve the other opposition aspirants such as former Senate President Manny Villar of the Nacionalista Party, Noynoy Aquino of the Liberal Party, and lately, Nationalists People's Coalition's Francis Escudero, among others.

So far, Erap Estrada remains behind other opposition aspirants in all poll surveys with Noynoy Awuino and Manny Villar dominating the presidential rankings.

But Estrada's handlers are optimistic that with the announcement of his candidacy and the advertising campaign they are launching, his rating will soar in no time.

Now, the remaining question is whether Erap is qualified to run for President again. That's the raging question.

(zhern_218@yahoo.com)