Trying to control her tears as a certain sadness crosses "The Face That Refreshes," Susan Roces recalls that fateful day in December last year when her husband, Fernando Poe Jr., suffered a massive stroke while having dinner with friends and political allies at the FPJ Studios on Del Monte Avenue in Quezon City.
"The next time I saw him," continues Susan, breaking into a faint smile, "Ronnie was at the ICU (intensive care unit) of the St. Luke’s Medical Center, with tubes attached to his body. I could have made believe that he was just sleeping but I knew at that very moment that he was gone."
As he did in his movies, FPJ fought long and hard. In the eyes and hearts of his millions of fans who prayed and, so to speak, stormed the gates of heaven for his recovery, "The Idol" couldn’t die, shouldn’t die. They wouldn’t let him.
Remember how fans in a town in Mindanao stoned the screen when, in one of his movies, FPJ was killed (even if he was shown later ascending to heaven)? In the end, they hoped, their hero would shake off the tubes, dust himself off and, again as in his movies where he always beat the bad guys, mount his horse and ride toward the sunset.
Nobody shouted "Cut!" It was for real.
"I knew that he was gone when I reached the hospital and talked to the doctors," says Susan. "I accepted the reality that he was gone at that very moment."
Gone (the word Susan uses) at 64 but not dead. Not in the heart of Susan and of the millions who will forever keep FPJ on the pedestal.
"He was the best President we never had," says an avid fan who insists that FPJ was the real winner in the 2004 elections.
FPJ suffered a stroke on Dec. 11 and "was gone" days later, at the first hour of Dec. 14.
"That morning when I left for our farm in Batangas," says Susan, "I didn’t know it was the last time I was saying goodbye to him. There was no premonition at all."
Except that a month earlier, FPJ did something unusual.
"Usually, Ronnie and I didn’t visit the graves of our loved ones on their birthdays but he insisted. On Nov. 8, we visited his mom’s grave at the North Cemetery; his mom’s death anniversary is in March. On Nov. 27, on his dad’s birthday, we were back at the North Cemetery."
Three weeks later, FPJ would be buried beside the graves of his parents and that of his younger brother Andy Poe (the real Fernando Poe Jr., FPJ having been Ronald Allan Poe in real life). The funeral march, lasting almost the whole day, attracted a record crowd of mourners along the route from the Sto. Domingo Church where the wake was held to the North Cemetery two kilometers away.
"He was health-conscious. He didn’t eat meat, only mostly vegetables and fish, and he exercised regularly. The only thing he complained about was his eyes. It hurt when the lights hit his eyes, more so during the campaign. So he had his eyeglasses changed."
Around this time last year, or a few days before his "last supper" with friends and supporters, FPJ himself wrapped the gifts for the family’s traditional raffle and bingo social scheduled on Dec. 22, the day he was buried. He had some parts of their house (in Greenhills, San Juan) fixed and repainted; and, on the days he and Susan went to North Cemetery, promised the children and elderly who were there that he would come back for their gifts, to wait for him. He went back, all right, but under sad circumstances.
If FPJ were to come back today, he would find everything unchanged at their home. His clothes remain intact at his cabinet and his personal effects are untouched, including the half-used cologne and toothpaste at the "His" section of the bathroom. Only some of the props he used in his movies — his booths, his Panday costume, his sword, etc. — have been donated to the Mowelfund Museum where an FPJ Memorabilia section will be opened this afternoon.
Only one thing would probably "shock" FPJ — his widow having turned into a "street parliamentarian" figuring prominently in anti-Arroyo rallies and demonstrations.
"The times call for it," is Susan’s only comment. "And I’m sure Ronnie would nod in agreement."