Asia Buzz: Pity Poor Erap

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Seeing his mug shot splashed across newspapers around the world this week, it's hard not to have just a bit of sympathy for Joseph Estrada. Shown in profile with his name, case number and date of arrest scrawled on a placard in front of his chest, the former Philippine President appeared no different than a common criminal.

Pity poor Erap. Unlike Indonesia's Suharto, he didn't preside over the slaughter of a quarter million of his people. Unlike Burma's Ne Win, he didn't jail and torture democracy activists. Compared to his most infamous predecessor, Ferdinand Marcos, Estrada's a rank amateur when it comes to thievery.

And yet none of those former leaders -- not to mention Cambodia's genocidal mastermind, Pol Pot, and Thailand's coup leader, General Suchinda Kraprayoon -- ever spent a day in jail. After all, Erap, as Estrada is commonly know, was just a party kind of guy who enjoyed his wine, women and kickbacks --- the usual perks of power in Southeast Asia.

Thailand's Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, feels pretty much the same way, although he elicits far less pathos. On trial before the country's Constitutional Court for allegedly concealing his assets to avoid paying taxes and manipulate share prices, he's facing a five-year ban from politics after having won the highest elected office in the land barely three months ago. Thaksin and his supporters bitterly complain about being persecuted; there are plenty of Thai politicians who have been looting the public purse for years and aren't on trial. So, he wails, why me?

It's a reasonable enough question that it could have earned Thaksin some sympathy. But that ignores the fact that Thaksin has his own crew of slime scrapers funneling dirt on his political opponents to the country's National Counter Corruption Commission. Most of the charges dug up by Thaksin's men, however, haven't stuck. And, many of the politicians the public suspects of being less than sparkling clean, are members of Thaksin's coalition.

Then there's Thaksin's defense: the Corruption Commission, established in 1998, is itself corrupt. This is an insult not only to the commissioners, but also to the Thai public, which had been longing for such a watchdog for years and has been supportive of its work.

What Thaksin and Estrada have failed to realize is that things are changing in Southeast Asia -- admittedly, it's happening slowly, and there's still plenty of corruption. Some governments are still, literally, getting away with murder. But these days, at least in some countries, if you so much as steal from the people, you end up in jail.

Even in places where the pace of change is relatively quick, such as the Philippines, there are those unhappy with the new rules. The culture of deference to power and hierarchy is still deeply ingrained. It simply isn't dignified to see your former leader's mug shot.

That's true. But there's a lot less dignity in letting crooks walk free.