Graft focus on Estrada's wife

The couple could be charged for perjury

The wife of the deposed Philippines president, Joseph Estrada, made a massive withdrawal from one of her bank accounts earlier this month, according to investigators looking into corruption allegations against Mr Estrada.

As we could not determine where this money came from, considering the fact that this is grossly disproportionate to the legitimate income ... the presumption of the law is that this is ill-gotten

Deputy ombudsman Margarito Gervacio

Luisa Ejercito, who is running in Senate elections in May, withdrew 109 million pesos ($2.3 million) from a local branch of Citibank, shortly before the internal revenue bureau froze her family's accounts.

The couple could be charged for perjury for failing to declare these assets.

The government ombudsman Aniano Desierto said the confirmation of the withdrawal came from records provided by the bank.

Mistresses

A popular uprising toppled Mr Estrada

Mr Estrada himself is accused of amassing $400m in unexplained wealth.

On 7 February, opponents of Mr Estrada asked the ombudsman to file a case to recover up to 20 billion pesos ($42.2 million) in property and bank accounts allegedly held by the ousted president and his wife, his mistresses and cronies.

Mr Desierto said Mr Estrada's acknowledged mistresses are not being investigated, but added that there was evidence some of them had millions of pesos deposited in their accounts.

Corruption scandal

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court barred the ombudsman from filing any charges in court against Mr Estrada for 30 days.

Joseph Estrada never issued a resignation letter

The order was intended to allow the Supreme Court to resolve the issue of his claim that he is still the country's legitimate leader and therefore immune from prosecution.

Mr Estrada was impeached for allegedly embezzling state funds and taking bribes from gambling bosses last year.

But prosecutors failed to win a conviction at the Senate that would have thrown him out of office.

A popular uprising spurred by a growing corruption scandal and the apparent collapse of the corruption trial toppled him last month.