Hero . . .

By Al S. Mendoza

IF HE WERE ALIVE, would FPJ have received his National Artist Award?

I doubt.

In the first place, he ran against GMA because he believed GMA was no good for the country.  And to FPJ, country is the people, the masses of Filipino people comprising nearly 80 percent of our population of almost 84 million now.

In the second place, GMA is the ultimate giver of the National Artist Award.  FPJ wouldn’t want anything that had something to do with GMA – given that FPJ had accused GMA of stealing the presidential election from him in 2004.

Tell me, who would want to receive anything from someone whom he believed stole something from him?

A deal with the thief makes you condone his thievery.

A deal with the devil makes you an evil one way or the other.

FPJ wasn’t like that, abhorred that.

FPJ was upright, thoroughly principled.

OK, FPJ was a fiercely independent person. Stubborn even. But in his heart was a huge spot reserved for the poor, for the marginalized, for the oppressed. 

Most artists are like that: Fierce, hard-headed, at times irrational. But a space in their heart is big  enough to accommodate the woes of the world.

In life as in death, FPJ was beyond GMA, beyond awards even that a posthumous National Artist Award now would appear like a mere citation in a barangay cleanliness program.

FPJ was of the universe: Finite.

What he did in reel, he also did it in real life.

Because he was honest, helpful and hero to the masses in the movies, so was he in real life.

Three times I did a San Miguel Beer commercial with FPJ.

Three times he donated his fee (in the millions of course) to build a school building at the site of each of our three location shooting.

Think of the other commercials he did without me.

One time, he was guest of honor in our town fiesta in Mangatarem.

The emcee introduced him “as our beloved adopted son of Mangatarem.”

When he got up the podium, he said, “I beg to disagree that I am an adopted son of Mangatarem.  I am a son of Mangatarem.”

Standing ovation.

Truly, he was of Mangatarem.

Although his father was from San Carlos, FPJ’s grandmother, Marta Reyes (the townsfolk called her “Baket Marta”), was born and raised in Mangatarem. A true-blue Mangataremanian, Baket Marta’s ashes are entombed in the church-town’s pantheons.

The prime lot in our town plaza – bare as the brains of the city’s traffic manager – is still under the name of the Poe family.

Months before FPJ died, Conrad Poe, FPJ’s brother, asked me for advice on what to do with the land.  Boy Samson, the right hand man of Mayor Resuello of   San Carlos, was listening.

“Build a semi-commercial building out of it,” I said. “But on an upper floor, let us house the FPJ memorabilia, sort of an FPJ Museum.”

He liked it.

“I will mention it to my brother (FPJ),” Conrad said. 

I also mentioned about putting up a McDo at the ground level.

“Nice idea, too,” Conrad said. “You are right, there’s no McDo yet in Mangatarem and I’m sure a McDo would change the character of our town.”

Our town! Wow!

Now that FPJ’s gone, everything’s up in the air.

What isn’t up in the air, though, is FPJ’s place in history: Hero of the masses.

When Susan Roces, FPJ’s widow, refused to receive the National Artist Award in Malacañang, she was reprising what Marlon Brando did some time ago: Refuse an Oscar best actor award.

Each had a reason for rejection but in the end, the rejection all the more added to the legend of genuine people.

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