The impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines entered its most critical phase yesterday when the main prosecution witness, the provincial governor who made the initial corruption allegations, began giving evidence.
However, Governor Luis Singson, a former drinking and gambling buddy of the President, failed to offer the extraordinary new revelations he had promised in a morning radio interview. He spent hours going through an extremely detailed ledger explaining how he collected £5.6 million in protection money from illegal lottery gangs and passed it on to Mr Estrada, his relations and cronies in fortnightly installments.
The President is facing four indictments relating to bribery, corruption, betrayal of public trust and violating the constitution. If two-thirds of the 22 senators who are acting as judges convict him of any of the charges he will be removed from office.
"I was the one who actually handed the money to President Estrada," Mr Singson told the hushed court in proceedings broadcast live across the country.
The President's name was not on the ledger, but Mr Singson said the initials AS referred to Asiong Salonga, the name of a character played by Mr Estrada, a former movie star.
The evidence varied little from the initial claims he made in October when he first blew the whistle on alleged presidential complicity in the numbers game scam. Mr Singson said yesterday that operators of the game were asked to send 3 per cent of their earnings to the President.
Earlier, Mr Singson threatened to give explosive new details of corruption, saying: "I promise to drop a new bomb."