FPJ: Last of his kind

Popular and well-loved personages are believed to deserve worthy honor for their sacrifices and deeds. Their remarkable aspirations make them remarkable men. Their campaigns to liberate the masses from poverty and injustice make them the all time heroes of the nation.

Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) had already been a hero of the Filipino masses long before he even earned the tag “Da King” of moviedom and long before he aspired for the presidency of the Philippines. When he ran for the presidency, unlike other politicians he needed neither public campaign to bring him to national prominence nor political gimmickry and false promises to draw crowds to listen or be near him.

Since his stardom, despite his modesty about his role and his abilities, the massive publicity given him by the industry’s public relations people and his role as champion of the Filipino masses had made him long ago their real life hero.

Common wisdom about popular personages and movie idol in Philippines politics is encapsulated in the equation -- popularity equals electability. Former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada is perhaps its most famous advocate. President Estrada named FPJ, as his likely successor during the second year of his presidency. Countless actors and actresses as well as television personalities indeed gained seamless entry into the Philippine political bureaucracy at all level. This phenomenon, according to most academics, has transformed Philippine politics from earlier “issue orientation” to present “personality orientation.” The politicians accepted the axiom as a reality in Philippine political life. But this was not the case to the major networks and broadsheets. They believed that FPJ’s positive image could be tarnished and that much of the May 10 elections depended on how the media would exercise its vast powers to shape public opinion and influence on the national political life. Television representation is a double-edged sword it can cut both ways. What the media placed together it can put asunder. Looming ahead of the others were the administration’s family of business clubs to raring to expose FPJ as a dullard. They would invite him to economic fora, along with other presidential candidates, to present their respective platform of government. During the forum they would embarrass him with simple questions like the difference between "GDP" and "GNP” or “inflation" and "recession.” And by the time the forum was over there could be no doubt about FPJ’s intellectual capabilities.

Indeed this was the mood, the sense that permeated the major broadsheets, radio and TV networks throughout the presidential campaign period. In coffee shops anti-FPJ partisans would raise dramatic and agonizing questions about the future of the Republic if such a “staggering dumb actor” won the election. “Is there any future for us with FPJ as president?” “How can he deal with foreign dignitaries when he cannot even talk intelligibly to reporters?”

Indeed immediately after FPJ launched his candidacy, there were predictable avalanches of news stories from the established media comparing him to his best friend Joseph Estrada. A lot of reporters went out of their way to draw intriguing parallels. Like Estrada, FPJ was barely literate, a school dropout who had mostly the low-life of society as his associates and therefore could not be relied upon to address the complex problems of the Republic with any coherence. Countless efforts were made to show that his varying roles in the movies as champion of the masses, were scripted fantasies that had no bearing on the real world.

The goal was nothing less than scenarios drawing FPJ as a future Estrada, boozing with a midnight Cabinet, composing mostly of movie extras, bit actors and sycophants. In many respects, the press along with Malacañang spin-doctors had succeeded in putting across the message that the political legacy FPJ inherited was one that had been left by Joseph Estrada. And as everyone knows, Erap was a has-been, a loser in EDSA II, a man who has desperately trying to rally what was left of his following to support FPJ. Should FPJ capture the presidency it was likely that he would appoint his political handlers, movie associates and friends as his presidential advisers and consultants. Worst, he would bring the men and women around Estrada back to Malacanang. After a short inauguration, he was sure to be repudiated by another EDSA or people power rally.

But unlike their treatment of Estrada, which was focused on his venalities, with FPJ they questioned his lack of education, experience, and expertise. The press in many ways savaged FPJ, and handled GMA with velvet gloves despite her miserable record as President. Major broadsheets, along with hired pollsters, and TV networks all but crowned GMA queen.While most media people pressed FPJ for a coherent program of government, they did not press as hard for the other candidates to do the same. They were willing to accept some such generalities as cleaning the government of grafters, reforming and strengthening the education sector and assisting small-scale and medium business enterprises, as programs of government. With FPJ the press kept hammering at the point that a presidential candidate must have a worthy platform, that he must be able to explain in his own words how he would bring forth economic growth.

At the beginning of his campaign FPJ gave no indication on how he intended to pursue his game plan. But he made clear that it was not going to be like his movies, scripted and all. As far as he was concerned the campaign for the presidency was not going to be a movie in the making. True he was “Da King” in the movies, therefore he could act whatever was demanded in a campaign script. He could be a tremendous fighter, a man of gentle predisposition or a rabble-rouser. Instead of doing what other politicians did, memorize and act out a ghost-written script, he did the opposite. FPJ himself had been passing the message through other intermediaries beside Senators Tito Sotto and Edgardo Angara that he intended to get away from traditional campaign strategies of delivering formal campaign speeches, with heavy dependence on highly educated ghost writers. No doubt, as with Estrada, sheer memorization work and good direction he could impress even the experts in the economic field of the region. Indeed this was what his campaign handler wanted.

It was recognized that he could not craft the speeches that the educated considered worth their efforts to hear or listen. It was recognized, though some interpreted it to be otherwise, that he studiously resisted the temptation to act out that role which the entrenched elite so highly regarded and considered as if it were the only qualification for the presidency.

An agonizing matter this was for a man of FPJ’s stature in the movie world, torn between following a script and mouthing what his ghostwriters wrote for him or to be himself presenting his concerns and dreams for the nation in his own words to the poor. And despite ridicule and mockery from the press about his refusal to subject his views to the scrutiny of the newsmen, columnists, editorial writers and publishers, FPJ did not go along with what he thought were a public relations stunt just to please the entrenched elite. Throughout the campaign he resisted delivering speeches crafted for him by Ph.Ds and who were ready to brief him on how to answer the hard and tricky questions about the economy and other issues regarding the polity. FPJ listened to his inner voice. And his reluctance to use the campaign process for show had given the administration and the press, which ironically viewed political campaigns as theatre, the impression that he was an insecure leader, covering up for his inadequacies. Political decisions came to be determined by the tactics and strategies of partisan competition. All these displaced responsible interests in the prosperity and success of the nation. But reporters and broadcasters alike insisted that they had been quite fair in their coverage of the May 10 elections. The public was wrong in their impressions of their reports.FPJ cared about the poor, the weak, the helpless and the victims of injustice. He could feel the pulse of the common man in his veins. But to the highly educated middle and upper classes it was one thing to tell the poor that you want to save them in faint and incoherent murmurings, quite another to see it take on clarity and persuasiveness in the well crafted prose of the highly educated ghost writer. In disparaging FPJ's supposed “low IQ,” the entrenched elite made clear that the problems of the Republic require a higher form of intelligence to solve them. FPJ did not meet the most elementary of these qualifications. But FPJ was no perjurer. He had chosen to be himself in the real world.

If people were to make a choice, let it be based on the truth. If he became their president he would marshal all the resources and powers of the presidency to help them. That condition was all he could contribute to the campaign. He could not speak of his own knowledge about programs that could bring about economic growth. But for FPJ it was sufficient that the poor and the needy understood and supported him.

FPJ’s supporters believed that he was sincere and committed to their cause and that was enough. He did not have to impress the intellectuals who, for all their talk about platforms of government, had failed to address and solve their programs since we became an independent nation. It did not matter to his supporters whether FPJ could talk, act and think like an intellectual. It was a help that FPJ had emerged from their rank as a man who was sincere and dedicated to their causes. Nor was that the extent of it, FPJ had known poverty and had helped some of its victims in his own way throughout his life.

It was no surprise to most people that FPJ was the man to beat throughout the campaign season despite the early flailing from the press. The D and E sectors kept faith in him, there was no other presidential candidate more popular than FPJ in the entire political landscape. Thus when the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), and Congress declared Gloria Arroyo as the winner, more than 60 percent of the Filipino electorate were convinced that GMA cheated and stole the presidency from FPJ.

Finally in his death it has been at last conceded that what he did during the campaign was to be himself. FPJ pretended nothing during the campaign. His soft message said simply, “I am running for the presidency because I believe I can help the poor.” He did not hire economic experts and top speechwriters to craft programs to impress the entrenched elite. He had acted out too many roles to know what make-believe was all about. While FPJ was best known as an actor, and one of demonstrated effectiveness and national fame, he would not indulge in pretense or covert mischief with his constituents. Doctors of law, economics, and political science have had written speeches and treatises about the ailment of the Republic and their plans to solve these ailments but not one has ever succeeded in doing so. FPJ would rely on his instincts, after listening to expert advisers, for making the right decision. His closest friends and followers liked him for his honesty about his own limitations, his capacity to control his anger and frustrations over the apparently irreconcilable principles among allies. And above all his ability to balance his unwavering commitment to nonviolence and tendencies in the opposite direction among his supporters.

FPJ’s death shattered all optimistic fantasies of the masses about their dreams of a brighter and better future. There is no question about it, “Da King” did not turn politician just to win the election. He started and ended his political career by putting a stop to political hypocrisy and pretense.

TODAY was a Philippine news daily broadsheet. It ceased publication in 2004.

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