Erap’s got a tomb ready, but doesn’t plan to die just yet

Former President Joseph Estrada has been busy digging his own grave, quite literally.

The ousted leader said he has prepared a tomb for himself on his 15-hectare estate in Tanay, Rizal where he is being held under house arrest while on trial for plunder, a capital offense.

"I want to see where I will be laid, my final resting place," he told a group of journalists he invited this week to his private residence in Greenhills, San Juan for his mother’s 101st birthday celebration.

The anti-graft court granted him a 12-hour pass to visit his home for the first time since he was arrested there five years ago.

Estrada rose to national fame as a popular movie action star who often portrayed underdog heroes. He later became mayor of his hometown, serving 16 years. Then he was elected senator, vice president and finally president in 1998 with the widest margin of victory in Philippine electoral history.

However, his tenure as president was cut short when he was forced to step down in a military-backed people power revolt in January 2001 over alleged corruption. He was arrested three months later.

His vice president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, took over to finish his term, and then was elected president in fraud-tainted polls in 2004.

While awaiting the conclusion of his 5-year-old trial, Estrada keeps himself busy on his estate running a farm with 300 chickens and 200 hogs.

He said he has distributed pigs to poor residents around his estate under a program in which the beneficiaries return three piglets to him for every 10 that are born from the pigs they receive.

He is also building a museum that will showcase his life as a "superstar, mayor, senator, president and prisoner," he said.

Estrada said it was US President Ronald Reagan who inspired him to run for president.

"He is my idol," Estrada said. "It is from President Reagan that I got the idea of running."

"When he became president, I said to myself, if the most powerful nation can elect a movie actor as their president, I don’t see any reason why the Filipinos cannot elect a movie actor also as their president," he said.

Estrada said he watched Reagan’s sunset burial, suggesting he wants a similar cinematic event when he goes.

"He really scheduled even the time of his burial," Estrada said.

"It was beautiful, dramatic. He was really an actor," he said.

Renato Constantino Jr., one of Estrada’s close friends, said the ousted leader even has an epitaph carved in marble ready for his tomb, reading: "The Filipino can depend on no one but the Filipino."

However, Estrada gave no signs of planning to die anytime soon.

The 69-year-old confessed womanizer and former heavy drinker and gambler said he is preparing "physically, mentally and spiritually" for being acquitted.

He said he has cut back on cigarettes - from three packs a day to one and a half - and his days of drinking Scotch whisky are over, turning to wine instead.

"I already consumed my quota" of whisky, he said.

His most serious ailment, weak knees that made him wobble when he walked, was cured two years ago when he received titanium knee replacements in surgery in Hong Kong allowed by the court.

"They are perfect. I am now a bionic man," he said with a laugh.

He said he wakes up at 6-7 a.m. each morning, does calisthenics at his small gym and gets into his sauna. This is followed by private prayers at 9. He then visits his chickens and hogs and supervises the museum construction.

"I am following more or less the Reagan type of museum," he said. — AP