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Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Editorial: Long live 'Da King'
IT WAS exactly one minute after midnight that action king and presidential aspirant Ronald Allan Kelley Poe--more popularly known as Fernando Poe Jr.--passed away which is slightly less than the 72 hours his doctor and specialists said is the time frame needed to determine his chances of physical recovery. Apparently however God saw things differently.
Right now preparations are undertaken by the Poe family and friends for his funeral which would expectedly draw thousands if not millions of friends--by this we mean real friends and not the politicos surrounding him who urged him to make a bid, however ill-advised, for the highest office of the land.
Certainly the atmosphere around his untimely demise was more than keenly felt--millions of televiewers were witness in fact to the ugly behavior displayed by Dolphy's son Vandolph who fought and hurled verbal invectives at the broadcast crew covering the event.
To be fair the TV crews, in their race for ratings, moved their cameras a little too close to the action thus coming across as being "in your face" to the many mourners who are otherwise too caught up in their emotions to even notice that their faces are being broadcast for all the Filipinos to see.
There are others of course who had gone to Luke's Medical Center not for purely altruistic motives--some are seen signing autographs--but there are people like Vandolph who had all the reasons to go there but acted quite out of proportion to the situation.
True, Fernando Poe Jr. acted rudely to one female TV reporter but to his credit he was at a campaign sortie, wasn't drunk at the time, never sought to pick up a fight with the TV crew and had at least a modicum of control to at least walk away. That kid Vandolph certainly had a lot to learn about self-control.
Despite this and criticisms about the company he kept FPJ's influence and drawing power was such that he managed for two days to gather together administration and opposition officials to his bedside in a startling display of solidarity.
That unity was summed up by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. who, when asked about his reaction to the profuse display of sympathies by the administration officials said "Let them come, after all we are one in praying for Fernando Poe Jr.'s recovery" or words to that effect.
Rarely have we seen such magnanimity. Poe's hold over the masa is legendary; just cite that famous story about the Muslims in the movie-theater who shot down the screen to little pieces after seeing him being clobbered by the enemy. Heck even the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) offered their sympathies to the bereaved family.
In this respect FPJ is truly the King, who achieved in his death what few people in this benighted country ever could do in their lifetime; he managed to unite them. He may not have won the Filipino people's mandate--certainly a lot of Filipinos would question that--but in his death he won their hearts.
The King is dead. Long live the King.
(December 15, 2004 issue)
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