FPJ may just lead the way

Da King of movies has finally decided he wants to be King. Not surprising at all since the masa has always treated him like royalty. His announcement hit the international headline news. CNN said, "Analysts say he may be a force to be reckoned with due to his popularity among the poor." The San Francisco Chronicle also picked up the story, saying that FPJ – a movie actor – could be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger (should it be the other way around?). So did Japan Times, Bloomberg News and the International Herald Tribune. Locally, his anticipated declaration caused so much anxiety, second only to the recent kidnapping spree. This announcement can only mean one thing: The clash between the rich and the poor is now beginning to unfold.

If FPJ will be able to mobilize the poorer sector of society to support him, and many are sure he will, he may just be the next president of this country. Ninety-percent of showbiz people have expressed their support for him. In fact, for the first time, Dolphy says he may just come out and campaign for his kumpare Ronnie. As expected, people of power and influence like the Makati Business Club (which is in the minority), has given FPJ – a high school dropout – the thumbs down. They have already pounced on him, and they are ready to throw at him everything including the kitchen sink. The painful fact is, the more you put him down, the more popular he gets. Filipinos in general have this special sympathy for underdogs, making it more difficult to bring down a well-loved celebrity like FPJ.

For the record, nine American presidents did not finish college ˆWashington, Lincoln, Jackson, Truman, Van Buren, Taylor, etc. The 17th president of the United States – Andrew Johnson – never went to school at all. It was his wife who taught him how to read and write. We don’t even have to go far. Ramon Magsaysay was belittled as a mere "mechanic" when he ran for president. In spite of this, Magsaysay turned out to be one of the best presidents this country ever had. The United States fully supported the candidacy of Ramon Magsaysay using US intelligence experts like David Sternberg, who fronted as a correspondent for an American newspaper, to assist Gabriel Kaplan during the presidential campaign of Magsaysay in the 50s. Another top CIA operative and counterinsurgency expert General Edward Geary Lansdale – the so-called Quiet American – was "appointed" by Magsaysay as his military adviser and "speechwriter" that directly determined foreign and military policies in the Philippines. That‚s why Magsaysay was successful in quelling the Huk insurgency. It was also through President Magsaysay that the US started to expand its influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Could this be déjà vu? Maybe.

Many people believe FPJ will win hands down unless the so-called elite can come up with a candidate that can convince the masses of their sincerity. This will be hard to do if the candidate will come from the list of traditional politicians. From his numerous statements to the press, it appears FPJ doesn‚t care much about money. He is a multi-millionaire in his own right. And he has candidly said many times that he is not corrupt, and that he is doing this because of the two million signatures asking him to run. "Mahal ko itong bayan," he said, and this is what the majority of the masses love to hear. A story even goes that he turned down his kunpadre Erap when the former president offered to give him a financial deal in return for FPJ’s support during his campaign in ’98. FPJ flatly said no, and he emphatically said he helped Erap purely out of friendship. In the end, FPJ was forced to accept a car from Erap as a gift for his birthday. Most surveys have indicated that the public is sick and tired of politicians with vested interests. The youth of this country and the middle class are simply tired of this endless politicking. That’s why, according to a recent survey by Pulse Asia, one in every five Filipinos would pack and leave this country for good if they had the chance. This disturbing social indicator is one of the main reasons why desperation is so prevalent nowadays.

If Fernando Poe Jr. is cheated out of this election, one can be absolutely sure that a mob rule, bigger than the Labor Day Siege of Malacañang, will happen. FPJ has a very strong following in vote-rich Mindanao. It is said that Muslims, most of them his intense followers, oftentimes shoot the movie screen when they see their hero being beaten up by villains. If this is the case, it is most likely that his Muslim fans will go berserk if anyone makes an attempt to cheat their idol. I have said this many times before: if people of power and influence are perceived to have done nothing to help this country, we will begin to see the makings of that classic class war. And from where we are today, one could almost smell it literally brewing in the air. William Pesek Jr. of Bloomberg News puts it quite clearly, "Watch Schwarzenegger all you want, but Hollywood’s best screenwriters could not come up with the stuff unfolding in Manila." This real life drama is waiting to unfold in a country where 40-percent of the population live below the poverty line, with more than five million squatters in Metro Manila alone. No doubt, the serious consequence of the now infamous Joey Lina Squatter Law is taking its toll. This social volcano may just explode sooner than we expect.

The only one who could stop the brewing tension is FPJ himself. Your guess is just good as mine on how he would plan to do this. But since he declared himself as a "unity" candidate for both the rich and the poor, then the responsibility now falls on his shoulders. I would assume that FPJ thought long and hard about his running for president and what the consequences are for this country. Definitely, the last thing this country needs is another People Power in the middle of FPJ’s term, if he wins, because we would not be so lucky the next time. FPJ’s only real vice is beer. In 1956, FPJ did a stunt job for the movie "Simaron" and his pay was all the beer he could drink. Now that he‚s an action superstar, he got 100 million pesos plus two new two-million-peso Land Rovers for appearing in a Christmas TV commercial.

What moved FPJ to finally decide to run is what one of his close associates told me: He saw the cries of a lot of desperate people when he went around the country, crying and begging him to save them from their misery. Poverty is what FPJ saw, and many of us may not realize how bad the situation is. Many people all over the country are subsisting only with one meal a day – if they’re lucky. One ADB population expert told me when she went to a depressed area in Samar that she could not believe what she saw. "This place is no better than the depressed countries in Africa." In short, there are just too many poor people with less and less resources, and if FPJ wins, we’re just paying back what many have consistently warned us against – neglect in managing our population growth. General population continues to grow at an average rate of 2.3-percent, 70-percent of which is added to the poor. We can only hope to see FPJ lead the way and show these traditional politicians, or any candidate, that what matters most for this country today is to offer 25 million people living below the poverty line some form of hope in getting a second chance in life and saving them from their misery.

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