Hope: A risk that must be run

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Hope: A risk that must be run
Sunday, 11 02, 2003

The thousands who came from all over and thronged to the Cuneta Astrodome last week – brandishing the signatures of more than two million who prefer a real actor to a despised president who seems to be acting most of the time – were hoping that Fernando Poe Jr. would utter those words they have been wanting to hear from him: “Tinatanggap ko na.” Instead, all they got was a “Salamat po sa inyong pagtitiwala.”

FPJ may have been coy, but his pasasalamat was obviously a prelude to what he will eventually say any day now (maybe tomorrow?). Just like in the movies?

A movie keeps playing in the people’s minds. And the movie runs thus: As a handful of gladiators are busy bloodying each other, out of nowhere strides a stranger and the crowd starts cheering. The stranger’s shadow casts a pal of fear and uneasiness among the veteran gladiators coveting the thumbs-up of the populace. Out of fear of being laughed out without a fight, the gladiators turn against the stranger. FPJ is the people’s favored gladiator, and in the nick of time he thrusts himself into the arena of combat amid the cheers of the people, and methodically cuts down his opponents and leaves them sprawled in the dust.

Those clamoring for FPJ to run are desperate for a leader, a leader upon whom they could bestow the last vestiges of their hope. This was the same kind of intense hope that arose at Edsa, but rendered unrequited by the one who loves Jose Pidal more than the nation. The embers of that dashed hope are glowing again. And it is FPJ who gives them that hope, that he will be a leader who would be willing to confront unequivocally, without fear or favor, the major anxieties of their time. This willingness, and not much else, according to John Galbraith, is the essence of great leadership.

Abetted by no less than those who know no politics at all, the specter of FPJ has thrown a fresh dimension to presidential politics. The standards have been changed; the rules overhauled. Here is the phenomenon of a popular movie star who has not even said a word about how he plans to govern the country, and yet has thrown the mercenaries of the incumbent in Malacañang into a feverish panic thinking up strategies to demonize the man.

It is the seeming reckless bravado on the part of those who want FPJ to run that makes one wonder why they find him as the embodiment of a leader that shall not attempt to fool all of the people all of the time. Measured against the benchmark of higher education, political savvy and business acumen – qualifications that office seekers proffer before the electorate – FPJ would look like a seedy character in a grade B movie. By the standards of the self-acclaimed arbiters in Makati’s financial district or the fumbling technocrats by the Pasig River, FPJ would probably rate a minus five in an ascending scale of ten. So, why does the man on the street look up to him for deliverance?

I suppose the answer lies in hope. The common man has not given up hope. Through FPJ, it appears now, people are saying the leadership of the privileged should prevail no more. To hell with fancy education, when so far, it has only given to rise to insincere talk and pomposity! To hell with political savvy, when so far it has only been used for self-aggrandizement masquerading as public service! And away with any pretense at economic expertise, when so far it has only enriched the favored few at the expense of an impoverished many!

FPJ is no different from the brave woman who gave up hope in 1986 – and who did well, considering the circumstances. Hope for the better is always self-fulfilling to those who want someone to be president. In the fashion of the woman on whom we placed all our bets despite her initial reluctance – did she not say then, “I am only a housewife?” – FPJ should be able to transform himself to be a good president. The Constitution itself does not require special qualifications for one to be president, remember?

In FPJ lies the hope of millions. They believe in what he is capable of doing. Without the burden of any scandal or corruption of the kind that weighted down his buddy, FPJ is free to move, and fast to govern. People always look for a leader that comes out clean even if you stand him on his head and shake him inside out. And this is the private and public persona of FPJ.

Politicians were conspicuous by their absence at the Cuneta Astrodome. The message was clear: The independent initiative of the FPJPM was not to be adulterated with the glitz of hollow political pageantry. But there are still those among our public servants who are sincere in their desire to save the country from six more years of corruption and neglect. For now, except for Sen. Vicente Sotto III, politicians may not be very visible in the countdown to his acceptance to the draft to run for president, but FPJ will need them; he will have to enlist them. And when he does; it would do well for FPJ to exercise the discernment to separate the well-meaning from the piggybackers, to distinguish from among them who the sycophants and the freeloader are.

FPJ’s reluctance – despite the encouragement and awesome show to support he has received – to accept the challenge to lead the country is heightening the suspense. But this suspense is something that he knows how to play so well. The “wrap,” as the movie people would put it, will end the way FPJ wants it, on his own terms, according to the script he has written, at a time of his own choosing. This speaks of an intelligence that transcends the reassuring text of a college diploma or the shrewd calculations of a veteran politico. He is weighing his options, yes. And as FPJ strides into the political arena, he tarries, knowing full well that, in the ineluctable words of Milton, “they also serve, who only stand and wait.” Specially if the millions of the nation are right behind him waiving the banner of hope which, in these troubled times, is a risk that must rightly and courageously be run.


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