Postscript
Postscript
Posted 02:36am (Mla time) Jan 27, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 27, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
UNLIKE Time's "Person of the Year," the Inquirer's "Filipino of the Year" is based not just on the impact someone had on this country but on the positive impact someone had on this country. If it were just plain impact, my own vote (figuratively, since I am not one of the editors) would have gone to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. She had the biggest impact on the country, dragging it to new depths, economically, politically and morally. The country was worse off last year than in 2002, and 2002 was a horrible year. Proof of it being that Ms Arroyo vowed not to run at the end of it, knowing she had brought it to that pass.
But I agree with the Inquirer editors, the Filipino of the Year is Fernando Poe Jr. Other figures did have a positive impact on this country, but none as huge as FPJ. Ironically, he did so in death more than in life.
Some observers say FPJ was simply romanticized in death, or invested with the heroic proportions he never had in life, other than in the movies. His detractors have pointed out that his widow, in particular, has no business complaining about other people stealing his dreams -- a reference to FPJ being cheated in the election -- as they themselves stole the dreams of Filipinos in the past. Both FPJ and Susan Roces, their detractors say, were Marcos supporters, and even had Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda as their chief sponsors during their wedding. And they, along with Joseph Estrada, campaigned for Marcos during the "snap election."
I agree that FPJ was romanticized in death and that he was a Marcos supporter. But those things show FPJ not just in the worst light but in the best as well. Marcos and Imelda did stand as their wedding sponsors, but that was way back 36 years ago last Christmas, when Marcos had a legitimate right to rule. It was Marcos' first term, after he beat Diosdado Macapagal in 1965.
More than that, though FPJ and Susan Roces did support Marcos and though they did appear with him onstage in January 1986, they were neither Malacañang cronies nor mendicants. There is no record of FPJ or Susan Roces soliciting favor from Marcos. In the same way that there is no record of FPJ soliciting favor from Estrada, his bosom friend. To Estrada's chagrin, who kept asking why he kept away and begging him to come see him. If FPJ was a supporter of Marcos and Estrada, then it was Marcos and Estrada who benefited from it rather than the way around. You can accuse him of not being very smart, or indeed of being politically naïve, but you cannot accuse him of being opportunistic.
I don't know that he would have made a good president, as I've repeatedly said. To this day, I have my misgivings. My friends from that camp have all tried to convince me he wasn't Estrada, he had never abused friendship and power, he had never practiced nepotism, he wasn't indebted to anyone, particularly the elite. But the downside is far more formidable. You saw it abundantly and physically in the people who sat in the front pew in his wake, among them Estrada and the various unsavory characters from the so-called opposition, who made Edsa People Power II not just possible but necessary. This was the company he kept, particularly during the last elections. That is where his political innocence looms large: He would have learned the ropes from these guys. I did write about it last December: Look at this crew, and weep.
But FPJ did make a positive impact on the country in a couple of ways.
The first is by probably winning the elections. Though shut out from ABS-CBN and other media, and though mugged from the start by the worst Commission on Elections since Marcos, he did enough to make Ms Arroyo's current occupation of Malacañang at least questionable. I do hope his widow pursues his protest, inside and outside of the courts. Frankly, I cannot imagine how Hilario Davide could have fallen from the heights he occupied during the impeachment trial, when he turned legalese into the language of cool, to the depths of presiding over a Supreme Court populated by kangaroos. Susan Roces would do well to take her case to the court of public opinion alongside the legal one. The first has been known to render fairer decisions, and sterner sanctions. Ms Arroyo should know. That was how she became president.
Second, and infinitely more positively, FPJ gave this country a touch of class. Unfortunately, that would be known only after he died. FPJ's head might not always have been in the right place, but his heart was. Having had to claw his way to the top (his father died and left his company in shambles; he started out in the movies as a stunt man), he never forgot his less fortunate brethren. Even more wonderfully, he did not keep reminding the world of it. He bade his friends to never talk about his acts of generosity, even shunning the thought during the campaign. Before he died, he had collected a cache of relief goods to give to the storm victims of Quezon. They were unmarked. They did not carry the sign, "Handog sa inyo ni Da King," or "Another project of Da King." It struck a contrast with the way an illusory President advertised her even more illusory generosity at every turn.
It isn't true, as Mark Anthony told the Roman mob, that only the evil that men do lives after them, the good is interred with their bones. The good that FPJ has done looks headed to stand time.
In the end, he did give the “masa” [masses] something to hope for, which sublimely ironically was not that they could always be saved by a savior, which his movies tended to suggest. He gave them something to hope for in life by his life-and death. The real hope, it said, was how you lived and died. You could live dishonorably and die in shame, or you could live honestly and die with dignity. His admirers will probably think that qualifies him for man for all seasons.
I'd settle for Filipino of the Year.
Posted 02:36am (Mla time) Jan 27, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 27, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
UNLIKE Time's "Person of the Year," the Inquirer's "Filipino of the Year" is based not just on the impact someone had on this country but on the positive impact someone had on this country. If it were just plain impact, my own vote (figuratively, since I am not one of the editors) would have gone to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. She had the biggest impact on the country, dragging it to new depths, economically, politically and morally. The country was worse off last year than in 2002, and 2002 was a horrible year. Proof of it being that Ms Arroyo vowed not to run at the end of it, knowing she had brought it to that pass.
But I agree with the Inquirer editors, the Filipino of the Year is Fernando Poe Jr. Other figures did have a positive impact on this country, but none as huge as FPJ. Ironically, he did so in death more than in life.
Some observers say FPJ was simply romanticized in death, or invested with the heroic proportions he never had in life, other than in the movies. His detractors have pointed out that his widow, in particular, has no business complaining about other people stealing his dreams -- a reference to FPJ being cheated in the election -- as they themselves stole the dreams of Filipinos in the past. Both FPJ and Susan Roces, their detractors say, were Marcos supporters, and even had Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda as their chief sponsors during their wedding. And they, along with Joseph Estrada, campaigned for Marcos during the "snap election."
I agree that FPJ was romanticized in death and that he was a Marcos supporter. But those things show FPJ not just in the worst light but in the best as well. Marcos and Imelda did stand as their wedding sponsors, but that was way back 36 years ago last Christmas, when Marcos had a legitimate right to rule. It was Marcos' first term, after he beat Diosdado Macapagal in 1965.
More than that, though FPJ and Susan Roces did support Marcos and though they did appear with him onstage in January 1986, they were neither Malacañang cronies nor mendicants. There is no record of FPJ or Susan Roces soliciting favor from Marcos. In the same way that there is no record of FPJ soliciting favor from Estrada, his bosom friend. To Estrada's chagrin, who kept asking why he kept away and begging him to come see him. If FPJ was a supporter of Marcos and Estrada, then it was Marcos and Estrada who benefited from it rather than the way around. You can accuse him of not being very smart, or indeed of being politically naïve, but you cannot accuse him of being opportunistic.
I don't know that he would have made a good president, as I've repeatedly said. To this day, I have my misgivings. My friends from that camp have all tried to convince me he wasn't Estrada, he had never abused friendship and power, he had never practiced nepotism, he wasn't indebted to anyone, particularly the elite. But the downside is far more formidable. You saw it abundantly and physically in the people who sat in the front pew in his wake, among them Estrada and the various unsavory characters from the so-called opposition, who made Edsa People Power II not just possible but necessary. This was the company he kept, particularly during the last elections. That is where his political innocence looms large: He would have learned the ropes from these guys. I did write about it last December: Look at this crew, and weep.
But FPJ did make a positive impact on the country in a couple of ways.
The first is by probably winning the elections. Though shut out from ABS-CBN and other media, and though mugged from the start by the worst Commission on Elections since Marcos, he did enough to make Ms Arroyo's current occupation of Malacañang at least questionable. I do hope his widow pursues his protest, inside and outside of the courts. Frankly, I cannot imagine how Hilario Davide could have fallen from the heights he occupied during the impeachment trial, when he turned legalese into the language of cool, to the depths of presiding over a Supreme Court populated by kangaroos. Susan Roces would do well to take her case to the court of public opinion alongside the legal one. The first has been known to render fairer decisions, and sterner sanctions. Ms Arroyo should know. That was how she became president.
Second, and infinitely more positively, FPJ gave this country a touch of class. Unfortunately, that would be known only after he died. FPJ's head might not always have been in the right place, but his heart was. Having had to claw his way to the top (his father died and left his company in shambles; he started out in the movies as a stunt man), he never forgot his less fortunate brethren. Even more wonderfully, he did not keep reminding the world of it. He bade his friends to never talk about his acts of generosity, even shunning the thought during the campaign. Before he died, he had collected a cache of relief goods to give to the storm victims of Quezon. They were unmarked. They did not carry the sign, "Handog sa inyo ni Da King," or "Another project of Da King." It struck a contrast with the way an illusory President advertised her even more illusory generosity at every turn.
It isn't true, as Mark Anthony told the Roman mob, that only the evil that men do lives after them, the good is interred with their bones. The good that FPJ has done looks headed to stand time.
In the end, he did give the “masa” [masses] something to hope for, which sublimely ironically was not that they could always be saved by a savior, which his movies tended to suggest. He gave them something to hope for in life by his life-and death. The real hope, it said, was how you lived and died. You could live dishonorably and die in shame, or you could live honestly and die with dignity. His admirers will probably think that qualifies him for man for all seasons.
I'd settle for Filipino of the Year.
posted by Dante at 9:04 PM
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