Philippine president knew of tainted donations to foundation

The revelation was made during a Senate inquiry into allegations that Estrada received more than 8 million dollars in bribes from operators of an illegal numbers game called "jueteng" and pockected 2.6 million dollars in provincial tobacco taxes.

The accusations are the basis for an impeachment complaint against Estrada, which the House of Representatives was widely expected to approve for trial in the Senate when it meets later Monday. The move would make Estrada the first Filipino leader to suffer such fate.

More than 100 congressmen have already expressed support for Estrada's impeachment. Only 73 votes in the 218-member House are required to send the case for trial to the Senate.

In the 22-seat Senate, at least 15 members must find a "preponderance of evidence" against Estrada to remove him from office before his six-year term expires in 2004.

Lawyer Edward Serapio, a former presidential adviser on political affairs, said Estrada warned him in "late August" that a 200-million-peso (4 million dollars) donation to the Moslem Youth Foundation may have come from illegal gambling collections.

"The president was angry and disappointed," Serapio told the public inquiry in the Senate. "He took me to task for accepting the donations on behalf of the foundation. He said that the donation must have come from jueteng and urged us to return the money."

Serapio, corporate secretary of the foundation, said the charity organisation did not launch an investigation into the president's warning, but decided "not to touch the money" until there was confirmation that the donation came from illegal sources.

In exposing the illegal gambling payoffs given to Estrada last month, provincial Governor Luis Singson, a former friend and gambling buddy of the president, claimed that the foundation was set up as a channel for the kickbacks.

Serapio denied the charges and stressed that the foundation is a "legitimate organisation" which was incorporated in February 2000. The foundation, however has yet to grant scholarships to Moslem students since then.

Last week, Estrada admitted that Singson offered him a bribe but he rejected it. In a bid to defend himself against the allegations, he revealed that the bribe was "intact" in a bank account intended for the foundation.

The defence backfired with the opposition noting that Estrada's public statements only showed that the president and his men employed "money laundering like criminal organisations" to conceal the bribery. Estrada vowed to clear his name during the impeachment trial.

"I hope that the House will send the case to the Senate immediately so I can face trial and the truth will come out," he told a radio interview Monday. "My conscience is clear. I did not receive a single centavo from jueteng."

(la/dpa)