A dark, make-believe world
By Antonio Montalvan II
Inquirer News Service

THAT is what reader Hernan Hormillosa, a social worker, fears our society could become if the Filipino masa would be sweet-talked by "devious image-makers." Hormillosa is referring to movie personalities, like Fernando Poe Jr. and his widow Susan Roces, who are being packaged by some members of the political elite into "messiahs" who can bring us out of the rut.

Hormillosa's reaction, and those of countless others, filled my mailbox after I wrote my column "Susan, Marcos also stole our dreams." (PDI, 1/3/05) I have no inkling as to the demographic profile of my reader-reactors, but many of them identify themselves as overseas Filipino workers based in the United States, Canada, Germany, Singapore, Qatar, etc. The rest are staying in various parts of the country.

But if I were to be unscientific and use the reactions as a gauge, I would say that the anti-FPJ easily outnumber the pro-FPJ. An old friend from Bacolod, Bugsy Lopez Bongco, wrote to tell me she could just imagine the volume of "hate mail" I must have gotten for that article. I told her that in truth there were only three out of about 50 letters. One in particular thanked me for my "stupid opinion" and said that I was simply part of the crowd that looks down on "mere artistas."

"Too bad, Ms Roces is adored by millions and you're just an unknown columnist from a small corner!" If what the reader meant by "small corner" is this once-a-week column space that is shared with two other writers, this is indeed "small." It would be another story, however, if that "small corner" she was referring to is Mindanao which till now is indeed still treated as a small corner by some folks-as if we in Mindanao have nothing to say about the national state of affairs.

By and large, however, it feels good to know the pulse of readers and to know what they want to read from you. For example, it was not so much as being anti-FPJ that delighted many and irked a handful. Not a few deplored our short memories of Ferdinand Marcos and martial law.

From Houston, Texas, Archie Andal wrote: the fact that the Marcoses are "still free and venerated" only indicates what a damaged society we have truly become. Another reader, Mariz Cubelo, said it is our duty to continue to "remind others about Poe's association with the Marcoses." Aida Mortell put it directly: "Looks like the media have forgotten the Marcos regime and the corruption of the deposed president."

Reader Arturo Cabrera said I was "one million percent correct" to ask Susan where she was when Marcos stole our dreams. Reader Dan Peña suggested the answer: "Please don't ask that question to Susan. She does not know the answer."

"For her to say that the Arroyo government stole her husband's dream is presumptuous," said Alice Cacnio of Richmond, Canada. A New Yorker friend from Mindanao, Dr. Jessie Kwong, said it is about time to "call a spade a spade." For John Onzal of Zamboanga City, his "unsolicited advice" was to forget packaging Susan as another Cory.

Others were far from scathing. Bert Lazo from San Francisco, California noted that it is "poetic justice for these very same groups to suffer and experience the pain they have inflicted on the populace" during the Marcos regime. Lazo closed his e-mail by addressing Ms Roces: "We are sorry for your temporary loss, but are you sorry for the Filipino people's seemingly irretrievable loss that keeps perpetuating through the passage of time?"

Puri Gonzalez expressed the idea that "now is the time to stop this hackneyed tendency of our countrymen to eulogize so-called 'martyrdom' that is not warranted by any stretch of the imagination." A reader who gave her name only as Melissa said that comparing FPJ to Ninoy is "glaring proof of how lost we are as a nation."

"We cannot allow celebrities to take advantage of the rut the country is in," said Randy Farin of San Diego, California.
"I felt terribly sorry for the people who tried to politicize their idol's death," said Dr. Joselito Mora of Australia.

An interesting rejoinder was the one that I got from Ricardo B. Velasco who said I was being too much generous to FPJ to consider him "in a sense a case for the Purple Heart." Mr. Velasco pointed out that the Purple Heart is awarded only to soldiers who sustain wounds or die in combat, "an experience that FPJ never found himself in other than the movies. I will not deny that FPJ helped a lot of poor people with his charity, and for that he should be praised and recognized, but please, not with the Purple Heart." Well said, Mr. Velasco.

One reader, Adi Pelaez, related the time when a drunk FPJ was said to have shouted "vindictive words" at some people wearing yellow T-shirts at a restaurant in Makati Cinema Square in 1987. Pelaez asked where Susan indeed was when Pelaez's own brother was terribly tortured in what she called a torture chamber of the Vers somewhere in Caloocan. I will reserve for another column her gruesome tale of that torture, and her own eyewitness account of rape by Marcos' soldiers, simply because her story deserves to be told.

But all these are very timely now that actor Rez Cortez has started a signature drive to conscript Susan Roces into the political arena. This is very cunning, this plot to delude the people by embellishing somebody in the image of Cory Aquino. Mr. Cortez has probably forgotten that signature drives then were a risky act. That is why those one million signatories for Cory were real brave hearts.

Art truly imitates life, doesn't it Mr. Cortez?

Comments to monta@cu-cdo.edu.ph