Mr. Estrada said the consultant, Paul Bograd, deposited the money in a personal bank account and may have used it to finance opinion polls.
Bograd has worked for the President since the 1998 election campaign, conducting polls and giving advice on political strategy.
Mr. Estrada is undergoing an impeachment trial in the Senate on allegations by Singson that the President accepted hundreds of millions of pesos in bribes from illegal gambling operators channeled through the go-vernor.
Singson testified at the trial Wednesday that the P5-million check would prove that Mr. Estrada received jueteng bribes. The check, made payable to "cash," bore the number of the bank account in which it was deposited.
But the President told The Associated Press that Bograd "didn’t know it came from jueteng. There’s nothing wrong with that."
Singson, however, said he gave the check directly to Mr. Estrada, and that the President was aware it was jueteng money.
"(The President) took it and gave it to Bograd. It happened in the presidential re-sidence at Malacañang Pa-lace," Singson told AP.
The check is the second payment from Singson that Mr. Estrada has acknowledged was accepted by aides.
The President previously said he rejected a bribe of P200 million from Singson, but later discovered the money had been given to an aide and ended up in the bank account of a scholarship fund for Muslim youth which he founded.
Critics say the Muslim Youth Foundation was a front used by the President to cover up payoffs, but Mr. Estrada insisted yesterday that he planned to provide scholarships to 100 people per year to study in the United States.
"We kept it a secret from the president," Singson said.
He said the younger Estrada collected P3 million a month from jueteng operators in Bulacan. He said Jinggoy turned over P2 million to him and pocketed the rest.
Jinggoy Estrada has denied any involvement in jueteng and said he is ready to testify at the impeachment trial to deny the accusations.
He will likely be called to the witness stand next week. Testifying for the third straight day, Singson said Bulacan had been a problematic area and most of the collections were delayed. He said this problem was solved when Jinggoy said he would be responsible for Bulacan.
Singson reiterated his earlier testimony that he personally delivered the jueteng collections of P5 million every 15 days to the President, except once when the money was delivered by his secretary Emma Lim when he was unavailable.
He said he delivered the money once at the residence of Guia Gomez, one of the President’s mistresses, on P. Guevarra street in San Juan, but the delivery was done most of the time at Malacañang.
The alleged share of the President in jueteng collections was delivered in black leatherette bags, in P1,000 bills. He said that the net collection from November 1999 to August 2000, after deducting the expenses, was P123 million.
Singson said that Yolanda Ricaforte deposited the amount in a bank allegedly for the President. He had previously identified Ricaforte as the auditor of the President in the Fountainbleu casino project and in the jueteng collections.
He admitted having committed errors in making some entries in the ledger of collections and disbursements from the jueteng collections. Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile pointed out last Wednesday that Singson made at least two mistakes in adding up the collections for February 1999.
Singson said that the error was not in the total but in the entries, as he contended that the total was the correct one.
"Lahat ng tao, nagkakamali (Everybody commits mistakes)," Singson argued.
During his testimony, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago expressed doubts on his claim that he was not receiving any salary from the jueteng collections. Santiago said this would have a bearing on Singson’s credibility.
Singson, however, clarified that while he did not get any salary, he got what he euphemistically listed in the ledger as "taxes." The ledger showed that in July 1999, Singson got P500,000; P450,000 in June 1999; P829,000 in May 1999; P465,000 in April 1999; P800,000 in March 1999 and P400,000 in February 1999.
Private prosecutor Simeon Marcelo tried during yesterday’s trial to show the closeness of Singson to the President. Singson said he was close to the Chief Executive because they shared several common interests, including playing mah-jongg, sometimes at Malacañang, in Boracay island in Aklan, aboard the presidential yacht, and in Tagaytay City.
Singson said he was a sponsor at the baptism of the President’s son Jacob with former actress Laarni Enriquez.
Marcelo said that to show how close Singson was to the President, he presented a canceled check for P2 million. The check was allegedly issued by Singson to one Joelle Pelaez "upon the request of the President."
Pelaez was identified as the second runner-up in the 1999 Binibining Pilipinas pageant.
The President, a former movie star, is being tried on counts of bribery, graft, betrayal of public trust and violating the constitution. A guilty verdict by two-thirds of the 22-member Senate on any of the four counts would force him from office.
At least 3,000 pro-Estrada demonstrators rallied outside the Senate building carrying signs reading "Erap remain."
Many business and labor groups have called for Mr. Estrada to resign regardless of his guilt or innocence to end the country’s political crisis, its worst in more than a decade.
The testimony by Singson, a former drinking and gambling buddy of Mr. Estrada, is the centerpiece of the prosecution’s bribery and graft charges against the president. Singson has accused Mr. Estrada of taking more than 400 million in bribes from illegal gambling lords and skimming P130 million in tobacco excise taxes intended for his province.
Singson made his allegations against Mr. Estrada in early October after the two fell out over the granting of a franchise for a legalized version of jueteng to Singson’s political rival.
Singson testified yesterday on questioning by Sen. Juan Flavier that he considered not making the disclosure, but decided to go ahead after a botched assassination attempt against him.
Singson said three vehicles filled with police armed with M-16 Armalite rifles stopped his bulletproof car and demanded he get out, but he refused and used a cellular telephone to summon a group of mayors to his assistance.
"It was such a simple matter, but why wasn’t it resolved?" Singson said of the jueteng franchise dispute. "So I told myself, maybe it is the will of God" and decided to go ahead with the disclosure, Singson said. — Efren Danao, Perseus Echeminada