The Philippines has asked 10 Asian and Pacific countries and territories to deny any request for political asylum by deposed leader Joseph Estrada, officials said Friday.

The governments of Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Palau, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, as well as the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macao, had been contacted by the Foreign Department, diplomatic sources said.

The sources said embassy or consulate officials were summoned to the Foreign Department Office to alert them to the possibility that Estrada could seek sanctuary in order to avoid possible arrest for alleged corruption.

The envoys were asked to inform Manila "if they have any information on any request by Estrada's camp," and to refuse him entry, one source said.

Justice Secretary Hernando Perez said earlier Friday that he had asked the Foreign Department for help in ensuring that Estrada remained in the Philippines, which wants to put him on trial for massive corruption.

"We're asking them to get in touch with our neighbors and ask them not to grant political asylum to the former president," Perez said on ABS-CBN television.

Estrada was toppled in a military-backed popular revolt last year. The Supreme Court ruled last week that he was no longer the Philippine president, and thus could not claim immunity from arrest.

Press reports said Estrada had since asked Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the United States for political asylum, although his family and the governments involved all denied that an approach had been made.

Vice President and concurrent Foreign Secretary Teofisto Guingona on Thursday warned foreign governments to deny Estrada sanctuary, saying Manila would consider it an "unfriendly act" if he was granted asylum.

Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Thailand as well as the United States have extradition treaties with Manila.

National security adviser Roilo Golez said Friday that Estrada would be unable to claim political asylum because "he is not being politically persecuted. He is just facing numerous criminal cases."

President Gloria Arroyo plans to file charges against Estrada for extortion, embezzlement, receiving bribes from illegal gambling lords and shielding friends from government regulators. "The number of charges may reach 13," Perez told reporters.

The charges are non-bailable and a conviction for economic plunder could theoretically see Estrada face the death penalty.

Meanwhile, Estrada said Friday that he had been talking with army soldiers who are dissatisfied with Arroyo.

"I know about that because we have been talking to a lot of lower-ranking members of the armed forces who did not know about the withdrawal of support from me," Estrada said on radio station DZEC when asked about military unrest.

Several Manila newspapers on Friday released an open letter by a shadowy military group calling itself the Young Officers Union (YOU).

The letter warned Arroyo that they would move against her unless she took action on so-called leftists in sensitive government positions and over alleged graft cases against her allies.

Arroyo aides dismissed the reported threat.

"That is just foolishness," Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita said, adding that "I don't really believe there is a YOU."

Ermita recalled that a group with that name had been involved in some of the coup plots against then-president Corazon Aquino in the late-1980s. But he said the group in 1995 signed an accord to abandon its destabilization efforts.