The "Erapsongs" made their debut in an underground CD and cassette album called "Erap: The White Album" which became a hit in the country shortly before Christmas.
The album contains 19 witty and arguably libelous musical parodies on President Estrada, his relatives, mistresses and cronies and was among the most popular gifts over the holidays.
Unsatisfied by the local popularity of their album, however, the anonymous artists and composers behind the "Erapsongs" now formally call their group Artists for Social Action and Response (ASAR) and are reaching for a wider audience through the Internet.
In a bid to catch the gargantuan market of Internet music enthusiasts, ASAR also made the album available in the popular MP3 digital recording technology preferred by Internet weenies.
The album can be downloaded through ASAR’s website at http://www. asarproject.org.
The album was recorded under the obviously fictitious label of "Pirate Records," which sport the logo of a skull and crossbones.
ASAR claims in the album that they are proudly underground and bravely patriotic and, instead of a copyright notice, the label says "Copyleft 2000. Copying, reproduction, distribution, hiring and lending highly encouraged."
The Erapsongs themselves are spoofs of old rock and roll tunes from the 1950s and 1960s as well as remakes of recent pop hits.
The most popular among these is an Erapsong entitled "Jingle Boy," a satire of the Christmas song "Jungle Bells," dedicated to presidential son and San Juan Mayor Jinggoy Estrada.
Jinggoy’s half-brother JV Ejercito, Mr. Estrada’s son by ex-starlet Guia Gomez, was enraged last month after he learned that the "Erapsongs" were a hot Christmas gift item among employers and employees.
"Pambabastos na ‘yan (That’s very insulting)," JV was quoted as saying, vowing that he would file criminal charges against the composers of the Erapsongs.
But ASAR claims it’s not into the insult-throwing game:
"Countless Erap jokes (also called Eraptions) from the moderately funny to the outright vicious have been circulating around longer than we care to remember," ASAR said in its website.
"Those jokes are funny. The caricatures are funny. With Estrada staying in power the joke’s on us. That isn’t funny." it added.
"There is nothing hilarious about him and his cronies having a field day plundering our economy," ASAR said, adding that "nobody is laughing about the massacred Moros and countless other victims of militarization, the continuous oil price hikes, anti-labor policies, (and) dire poverty amidst the crisis while the (President) splurges the people’s hard-earned money with his decadent lifestyle and mansions for his women."
According to the group, "it is unfortunate that Estrada came from the ranks of artists. It’s high time that we end these... The battle line is drawn. It’s time we deliver the punch line."