“Erap para sa mahirap,” they invariably replied, echoing the campaign slogan of “Erap for the poor”.Yesterday, in the Tondo district of Manila, which used to be notorious for the vast rubbish dump known as Smoky Mountain where most of the people lived, voters crowding into polling stations were even shunning their local hero Alfredo Lim, who is also standing for president. Their appeal was a clear cry for the people to vote for anyone but Erap. But it looks likely to fall on deaf ears.Mr Estrada has struck a cord with the mass of the people who are struggling to make ends meet and have recently found that struggle even harder since the Asian financial crisis. If true, sales of Johnnie Walker Blue Label must have slumped in the Philippines. There must also be distress in the casino industry which is reported to have lost a high-rolling client.Will his lifestyle stop Erap winning the election? The Catholic Bishops Conference, a highly influential body, made a last-ditch attempt to thwart his chances.

“Vote for persons who morally, intellectually and physically show themselves capable of inspiring the whole nation towards a hopeful future,” said the bishops in a pastoral letter issued on Sunday. “The people like the fact that he’s the only candidate who’s not a hypocrite,” said Ronaldo Zamora, one of Erap’s key campaign managers. Erap – a nickname derived from the Filipino word for buddy – regards his love of women as an asset, indeed one of his mistresses was on the campaign trail with him.His aides say he is now off alcohol. WHEN President Bill Clinton arrived in the Philippines two years ago his security men spotted a large man sporting an Elvis Presley hair style lurching towards the presidential aircraft Quick off the mark, they blocked his path. Even then more neutrons are needed from metals such as beryllium and polonium to initiate a chain reaction.The low-yield device was probably not nuclear at all: these tests are intended to simulate the effects of a nuclear explosion using non-nuclear or nuclear reactor sources. Basically, it’s a way of developing warheads.A thermonuclear device requires plutonium and produces an explosion so intense that fusion occurs.

If India has achieved this, it has taken a huge nuclear step.How big was the explosion?According to US and Swiss experts, the incident was equivalent to an explosion of 10 kilotons of TNT The Hiroshima bomb of 1945 was a 15-kiloton bomb.. Those explode, imploding the uranium, which reaches a supercritical mass. However, it’s a difficult process.What does a test indicate?Most importantly that the country is capable of building a nuclear weapon. Nuclear tests transform a country’s standing in the international arena.What tests did India carry out?Three, apparently simultaneously: a fission device, a low-yield device and a thermonuclear device.What are these different tests?A fission bomb uses enriched uranium (at least 15 kilograms of 90 per cent U-235), arranged as an empty sphere surrounded by high explosives. Hence India’s argument that until existing nuclear weapons powers renounce them, they have no moral right to insist other countries do not seek to acquire them.India LEAVES ITS signatureHow do we know it was a test?The “signature” detected by seismometers around the world can pinpoint an event, and indicates whether it was sudden (as with a bomb), or has the long-lasting resonance of a tectonic event (as in an earthquake). Its main motive for retaining the nuclear option is the belief it will ensure security against two traditionally hostile neighbours to the north-west and north- east.But, as Dan Plesch of the disarmament group Basic contends, “the condemnation of the established nuclear powers only exposes the basic hypocrisy of the Big Five – of us saying to other countries `Do as we say, not as we do’.”Five weeks ago Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, hailed Britain’s ratification of CTBT as proof of its “commitment to the goal of a nuclear-weapon free world.”In reality, however, Britain’s nuclear deterrent was excluded from consideration at last year’s strategic defence review initiated by the incoming Labour government.