Erap stages comeback ...in movie career

MANILA, Philippines - Former President Joseph Estrada is definitely staging a comeback – not in politics, but in his first love, the movies.

Estrada is returning to the silver screen in the film festival at the end of the year. He is set to appear in the title role of “Ang Tanging Ama N’yo” produced by Star Cinema.

The movie is a takeoff from the box office franchise “Ang Tanging Ina N’yo” starring comedienne-actress Ai-Ai de las Alas. This time she will be Estrada’s leading lady in the project set to be included in this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival in December, a few months before the May elections.

Estrada, a Famas Hall of Fame Best Actor awardee, is sitting down this week for a story conference with executives of the Lopez-owned Star Cinema to finalize the film before actual shooting takes place anytime soon.

“It’s a comedy with a (social) message,” Estrada told The STAR.

 Estrada made his last movie in 1987 while he was still a senator. He did the award-winning “Sa Kuko ng Agila,” an anti-US bases movie which co-starred his then fellow Sen. Nikki Coseteng.

Aside from a movie comeback, Estrada is also set to appear in a commercial for an anti-arthritis medicine. He himself was once afflicted with bum knees and had to undergo kneecap surgery in December 2004.

In the exchange of dialogue in the forthcoming ad, Estrada is supposedly asked: “Makakatakbo ka pa ba?” To which Estrada would retort: “Sinong nagsabing hindi? Humabol kayo!” In the next frame, Estrada would be seen jogging away.

The former president is not discounting the possibility that he might indeed make a return bid for the presidency after being granted executive clemency by President Arroyo in October 2007. 

Estrada, whose six-year term was cut short by the EDSA-2 in January 2001 insisted anew all his political rights have been restored, including the right to be elected into public office, with the full presidential pardon to his plunder conviction by the Sandiganbayan in the same year.

The deposed president has been doing the rounds of provincial visits all over the country which he dubbed as “Lakbay Pasasalamat” following his release from six and a half years of rest house detention in Tanay, Rizal.

Estrada, who is turning 72 years old on April 19, said he will not host any birthday party where, he wisecracked, he would have to perform the role of a “G.R.O.” (guest relations officer).

Yet his age could hardly dissuade Estrada from a possible comeback attempt in the Office of the President. “Eh bakit si Reagan, 73 (years old),” referring to the late US President Ronald Reagan, himself a former Hollywood B-movie actor who ran and won two consecutive terms in the White House despite his age. 

But Estrada will be doing his usual gift-giving of bags of goodies to the urban poor. He will be distributing 30,000 “Erap Para sa Masa” bags in slum areas of Baseco, Smoky Mountain and Dagat-Dagatan on the eve of his birthday.

He will be the special guest of boxer Nonito Donaire when the Filipino defends his title at Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City on April 19. Later that day, Estrada will host his traditional lunch party with his former San Juan constituents who have since resettled in Taytay, Rizal.

Estrada, actor and former town mayor who rose to the land’s highest post, is the featured guest in today’s breakfast forum at the Kapihan sa Manila Hotel where he is expected to bare his plans both political and personal.