MANILA -- The Philippine Senate launched Asia's first impeachment trial on Monday, ordering President Joseph Estrada to answer corruption charges only hours after the legislature's majority leader deserted government ranks.
With the defection of Senator Francisco Tatad, the trial promises to be a cliffhanger with no clear indication on whether Estrada will survive or be convicted and removed from office.
Estrada has been under tremendous pressure to resign since a provincial governor said in October that he had handed him millions of dollars in bribes from illegal gambling syndicates.
The governor, Luis Singson, said Estrada had also diverted funds from excise taxes to his personal use.
And prosecutors have said mistresses of Estrada, a self-confessed womanizer, will be summoned to testify about the funding of the luxury houses they are said to be living in.
In an historic session attended by foreign diplomats, Senate members donned black robes to lend the event an air of solemnity and converted themselves into a tribunal to judge the former movie star.
Apparently rented in haste, some of the robes looked either either too small or too large for some of the senators.
The trial proper, when prosecutors start presenting evidence, is to begin in early December. Estrada has said he is innocent of the charges and vowed to clear his name.
"I will accept whatever is the verdict of the Senate," Estrada told reporters.
"Nobody's above the Constitution. Nobody's above the law.
"I leave my fate to God and to the judgment of the Senate." Earlier, Tatad announced his defection from Estrada's coalition, but stressed he was not joining the opposition.
A two-thirds vote in the 22-member Senate -- or at least 15 -- is required to convict and remove Estrada from office.
Tatad is the seventh member of the president's coalition to defect since the bribery scandal broke last month.
The desertion reduces the number of senators in the coalition to seven, which means Estrada would need at least one other vote to survive.
Along with Tatad, four others are believed to be independent while 10 are thought to be with the opposition.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide, the trial's presiding officer, promptly ordered the sergeant at arms to deliver a formal summons to Estrada ordering him to answer the charges within 10 days. A presidential aide received it for him.
Estrada is charged with bribery, corruption, betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution.
(Reuter)