Erap: One more term will be my last

MANILA, Philippines – Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada said yesterday that if he wins another three-year term as mayor in next year’s polls, it will be his last.

Estrada, in an interview with The STAR, said he wanted to retire this year, but he realized that one term as mayor is not enough to complete the programs he had started for his constituents.

“A second term for Manila mayor will be my last. Then, I will retire from politics. I also wanted to live as an ordinary citizen. Besides, I can still continue serving the people as private (citizen) Erap,” he said.

Estrada, now 78, served 17 years as San Juan mayor before being elected to the Senate in 1987.

In 1992, Estrada was elected vice president and became president in 1998, a position he held for two and a half years before being ousted on plunder charges.

Estrada said he spent two years of his three-year term as Manila mayor raising funds to pay the more than P4 billion debts allegedly left by his predecessor, Alfredo Lim, who is making a comeback bid.

Among the programs Estrada started and wants to finish is the “Rebolusyon Kontra Gutom,” which encourages people to plant vegetables in their backyards.

He earlier asked his neighbors on Mangga street in Sta. Mesa, Manila and all well-off families in the city to offer parts of their perimeter walls for the use of the city’s poor for their hanging vegetable gardens.

Estrada said this will put vegetables and other basic food items on the table and give the poor additional income when they sell some of their harvest.

He said he converted the perimeter walls of his home into a “vegetable wall garden” and will share the produce with poor families in the vicinity.