E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Two good men
Sunday, 01 06, 2005
Joseph Ejercito Estrada, the country’s real President from June 30, 1998 to June 30, 2004, was a sight to behold over the bier of his fallen best friend, Fernando Poe, Jr., the natural-born Filipino citizen who was the real winner in the May, 2004 presidential elections. The best of friends on- and off-screen, theirs was a friendship that, like a football, has not cracked, much less burst, despite their having kicked it around for over four decades.
Their public images were almost diametrical opposites: FPJ was the tight-lipped mystery man, while Erap often exhibited the braggadocio of one who is confident that his public would take him for what he is, faults and all. But they stuck together through all those years - walang iwanan - and therein lay the verity of their friendship: one mind in two dissimilar personages. One never got in the way of the other - unless one happened to be going down and needed a helping hand.
Thus one was very much around in the other’s presidential campaign, and then virtually ceased to be a presence right after the other’s inauguration as the 13th President of the Philippines, inside Barasaoin Church, on June 30, 1988. When he again reappeared, it was the other’s turn to lend a helping albeit unbidden hand. At Sto. Domingo Church last Dec. 21, we were to see the other sending off the one to his final journey to that undiscovered place from where no one returns.
Erap need not have wasted so many words; after all, isn’t friendship nothing but solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness? But true to his outspoken persona, he had to speak. And in the presence of the teeming masses who reposed on FPJ their hope of deliverance from a hopeless government, Erap wistfully yearned for what might have been had his buddy gotten to actually sit as president.
What, indeed, could be expected of a presidency under FPJ? The hope was heaped on him from the time the first signature urging him to run for president was even made, the same hope that Erap had heralded in 1998 as the beginning of a new day. The hope continues beyond the death of FPJ, just as it was hope eternal for everyone even after Erap had been robbed of his six-year term in January 2001.
These two good men are victims of the same woman, who through wheedling and dealing with an elite mob has managed to install herself in the position that both of them should rightfully occupy. FPJ could have taken his grievance to the parliament of the streets, but he was a steadfast believer in the justice system of the country, so he pursued his cause before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal. Albeit with strong reservations, Erap, too, believes in the justice system. Both are victims of the system, but nonetheless are the paradigms of the obedient Filipino.
The roles they portrayed in their movies - as defenders of the oppressed in the classic conflict between good and evil - have segued into real-life roles, which made them the exemplars of a people whose inner fire has gone out. This dead fire has burst into flame by their encounter with two good men who taught them that hope need not be a bucket of the ashes of burnt-out dreams, or a frayed flag of aspirations twisting in the wind.
We should all be thankful for these two good men. We should honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives has meant the most to us. And we will discover that it is not the one with a doctoral degree in economics, but Erap and FPJ who, instead of dispensing advice, solutions or remedies, have valiantly chosen rather to share our pain as a nation and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.
Their foray into politics was a function of their shared passion to serve the people who idolized them. It was not enough that they could send moviegoers happy with the thought that good has triumphed over evil. It was necessary to actualize this in real life, with real, actual and meaningful service.
Their unheralded acts of mercy and piety are now legend for everyone to know and repeatedly talk about and share with others. There was no effort on their part to drumbeat their acts. The recipients were their best advertisers, which is why it was not hard for anyone who did not know them well to accept the truth of the claim that once upon a time (or even presently) Erap and FPJ were generous with their help. The overwhelming votes for Erap and FPJ at the polls, despite the cheating by their respective opponents, attest to this undying loyalty of those whom they have served and helped.
One is now dead, the other still living but reluctantly rendered immobile by the hard hand of the entrenched rulers. But they continue to serve, having wisely made provisions for their legacy to continue serving the poor. Their respective spouses are now servants of the poor, the voice articulating the muffled yearnings of the people, when they picked up and donned the mantle of leadership that has been cunningly taken from their husbands.
It may not be long before those whom they left behind with all their dreams intact will finally emerge triumphant in the continuing struggle against an insensitive and negligent entrenched power. Look out the window - the specter of FPJ is passing by and, reminiscent of a scene in one of his movies, he exhorts us: Huwag ninyo akong talikuran; ako ay isda, kayo ang aking dagat. As long as we do not turn our backs on Erap and FPJ, our best will be for these two friends, who have proved to be our friends. They have known the ebb tides of our uneasy life; we should also let them know when our lives begin to flood. As Khalil Gibran counsels us: “For what is a friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek him always with hours to live.”
Death has not silenced FPJ. He has even become the louder advocate of good governance when he is placed in counterpoint to the present usurper of what should have been his office. Jail has not diminished Erap either; every day that the nation sees Erap being savaged by the ruling class is another slab of stone that this government piles on its own burial mound.
After the untimely death at the tarmac of another hero, it did not take a long time for our country to get out of the shackles of a dictatorship. It will not take long either for the Filipino people to finally emerge victorious over the dictatorship of the elite that robbed both Erap and FPJ of their right to govern. Two friends who have become our friends have seen to that, as they, early on, planted the seeds of hope and deliverance. Sic transit Gloria!
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