‘Poe will back out a la dela Rosa’

Supporters of Sen. Noli de Castro are predicting that action star Fernando Poe Jr. will back out of the presidential race the same way a popular actor-turned-politician did in the early 1960s.

Isko Catibayan, spokesman for Kabayan (De Castro’s nickname) for Vice President Movement, said Poe is only being forced to run by "traditional politicians and his presidential bid is fictional just like his movies."

De Castro is President Arroyo’s vice presidential running mate. He will face off with Sen. Loren Legarda. De Castro and Legarda are both television journalists formerly with network giant ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp.

Catibayan said Poe will back out once he realizes that he does not have the know-how to run a public office and solve the country’s problems, especially the economy.

"He is running for president without knowing what he wants to do in terms of programs and policies. With the country’s major debt and economic crisis, this is abominable. It will be another major disaster if he makes it," Catibayan said in an interview.

"We predict that like Rogelio dela Rosa decades ago, FPJ will back out of the presidential race before May 10," referring to a matinee idol who quit the 1961 presidential race shortly before the election.

Rogelio dela Rosa or Regidor dela Rosa in real life, was born on Nov. 12, 1914, in Lubao, Pampanga, hometown of Mrs. Arroyo’s late father, President Diosdado Macapagal, who won the 1961 election.

In the 1950s, he later adopted the screen name Rogelio dela Rosa and started his entertainment career as a singer and as an actor in some stage shows known as zarzuelas with the young Macapagal, a poet.

Following the tragic death of President Ramon Magsaysay in 1953, Dela Rosa decided to enter politics and was elected senator in 1957. It was Magsaysay who had earlier urged him to run for public office.

Encouraged by the clamor of his supporters, Dela Rosa campaigned for president in the 1961 presidential election as an independent candidate against two other presidential candidates of major political parties, incumbent President Carlos P. Garcia of the Nacionalista Party and the presidential standard-bearer of the Liberal Party, Macapagal.

Macapagal was Dela Rosa’s brother-in-law. The former president’s first wife was Purita dela Rosa, a younger sister of Rogelio, who died during the Japanese occupation in the 1940s.

However, at the peak of the campaign, Dela Rosa realized that his candidacy might split the anti-Garcia vote and pave the way for a Garcia victory.

In 1965, Dela Rosa was designated ambassador to Cambodia. He was later re-assigned to the Netherlands, Poland, and Bulgaria.

He also became the dean of the diplomatic corps during his diplomatic tenure in the Netherlands. His last post was ambassador to Sri Lanka.

Dela Rosa retired from the foreign service in 1983. He ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Batasang Pambansa in 1984. He succumbed to a heart attack on Nov. 16, 1986.

Catibayan said Poe and Legarda have so far only bared nothing but "motherhood statements" on national issues and they should bare their program of government on how to solve the country’s problems.

"FPJ has not presented his platform of government and this just bolsters the fact that he does not know the intricacies of public governance," Catibayan said.

Known either as the "Da King" or by his initials FPJ, Poe is seen as Mrs. Arroyo’s major stumbling block in her bid to seek a full six-year term because of his celebrity popularity.

Poe’s lack of experience in holding public office, however, has caused nervousness in the business community and has rattled the local financial markets.