THE MATRON who sat next to me at Bhoy Navarette's beauty parlor asked me about it. So did the security guard at Traders Royal Bank, and even the lotto ticket vendor asked me about it: Is Fernando Poe Jr. really running for president under Erap's LAMMP in 2004?

We hear Erap himself is using his enormous convincing power for his friend to agree to take over the mantle of leadership from him when he steps down from the highest position in the land five years from now. And there are reports that the king of Philippine movies is, in fact, taking a crash course in Public Administration at the University of the Philippines.

So, is he or isn't he? A lot of people are convinced he is. They believe, Ronnie himself is the first to admit that show business holds no challenge for him anymore. He has done everything he can possibly do there, and he's ripe for a political career. Also, they point out that Da King's has a soft heart for the masses. Surely, the best position to be in in order to help these people is the presidency.

Of course, there is no question whatsoever that Ronnie is going to win, if and when he decides to run. Surely, his legions of fans from Aparri to Jolo will ensure his resounding victory. And, if Erap's full term as president proves successful, even the so-called elite could very well go for FPJ, too.

Can he be an effective president when he wins? I believe, yes. For one, the guy's heart is in the right place: he roots for the underdog. He takes the side of the great unwashed. And his generosity is as huge as it is unheralded. He gives with his right hand but his left hand doesn't even know about it.

Ronnie, if given the opportunity, will also bring to the presidency the sincerity and humility which have been the hallmarks of his personal as well as professional life. He's a man of few words, but he values every word so much that he goes the extra mile to keep it.

He has also demonstrated his leadership qualities and management skills, both in running his hugely successful FPJ Productions and when he became the first president of the actors' guild, a position he accepted in order to reconcile the warring factions that rocked the birth pains of that organization.

But, personally, I don't think Ronnie is going to run, even if I relish the idea of having Susan Roces as the most beautiful first lady in the country's history. Call it gut feel or sixth sense, but I just don't think Ronnie's palms have Malacañang written all over them.

For one, I know the guy to be a very private person. He shuns interviews, opting for casual chats over bottles of his favorite brew with a few movie reporter-friends, whose judgement on what may or may not be written he implicitly trusts. He also looks down on paparazzi-type pictorials, preferring to have his official photographer take pictures of him and no one else. The rare times he allows himself to be interviewed on TV, he personally instructs the cameraman on which angle he should position his camera.

Now, how can you reconcile that with being president, the country's chief executive whose every action-both official and personal-is duly photographed and videotaped for posterity, and subjected to the most intense public scrutiny and appraisal?

For another, I believe that, if Ronnie could be convinced to join politics, he'd have entered the ring much earlier. He has succeeded all these years in turning down proposals everytime the political season comes around. I see no compelling reason for him to change his mind now.

After all, he is already living a charmed, privileged life. Why should he exchange the peace and tranquility with which God has blessed him for something that will surely turn everything upside down?

You see, Ronnie is chronically allergic to scandal and controversy-especially the kind that's not of his own making but drags him into the picture just the same. There's no problem if he, indeed, is the one to blame for something. He stands up for whatever he's done and he immediately owns up to any indiscretion. Remember the time when he personally went to the police station to clarify an incident in a bar where he gave a drunken braggart a sample of his legendary fists?

But Ronnie hates it when his good name is tarnished by malicious talk that has no basis in fact, or is blamed for other people's wrongdoing. Through the years, movie reporters have come to respect his need to keep his distance from them. Every movie writer I know holds him in highest esteem and most people in media are in awe of him.

A lot of people make a big thing of Ronnie's similarities with his Pareng Erap, and point to them as factors that will eventually convince the action king to exchange his show biz scepter for the country's political throne. They forget that the two are different in some important ways.

One, I don't think Ronnie has Erap's self-deprecating humor. Remember that those Erap jokes, which were the rage during the last presidential derby, actually emanated from Erap's camp. I don't believe Ronnie has it in him to instigate jokes to make people laugh at his expense.

(Truth to tell, the personality of the guy, just like Erap's, is pregnant with comedic possibilities. Like, those sideburns, that hair which never goes awry, that stance with the slightly bowed head and thumbs tucked in his pants' front pockets, that unique drawl, and yes, that machine gun-style of demolishing enemies with his fists-they definitely have the seeds from which forests of jokes can surge. And, if he wants to, Ronnie can very well give Erap a run for his carabao English.)

Two, I don't believe Ronnie is the political animal that Erap is. In fact, he's a straight dealer, he takes and dishes it out like it is. I don't think he has the stomach for the oily backroom wheeling-and-dealing game that seasoned politicians have refined into an art. I also don't think his gut is tough enough to deal with the ass-lickers on the one hand and the back-stabbers on the other that are a part and partial of the world of politics.

Three, I think Ronnie himself recognizes the fact that he doesn't have the training for politics that Erap had even before he first cast a misty eye at Malacañang. Before he became president, Erap was mayor, senator, then vice president. And even then, there are those who say that, despite his vast experience in government, he still has a lot to learn, and he's learning the hard way and on the job, at that.