The FPJ factor / Abu Sabaya could be dead

Just recently at the Makati Medical Center, one of my doctors greeted me with the news the hospital was all agog about Fernando Poe Jr. Why? The story was that FPJ, at the request of a very sick boy, visited him in his room. And – lo and behold! – FPJ came dressed as a presidential wannabe in colored T-shirt, blue jeans, red cap and gleaming boots. FPJ for President 2004. Wow! My doctor, who shall remain nameless, exclaimed: "He’s running, FPJ is running in 2004. Believe me. Otherwise he would not have dressed up like that just to please a sick boy." Maybe he is. And Susan Roces isn’t helping any by saying of late "We are not thinking of the presidency right now, my husband is quite busy making pictures."

If Susan Roces had simply stuck to the old script: "No, talagang hindi, Ronnie is not crazy. Politics is not for us. The presidency is way, way out, impossible. And you believe us. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. That is as final as final can be. Please leave us alone." But when Ms. Roces hedges ever so little and says "not right now," there’s a lot of rope you can pull from that statement.

The grapevine right now is something like this:

Erap Estrada is moving heaven and earth to convince FPJ to run in 2004 with Sen. Panfilo Lacson as his runningmate. And he will succeed. Money, campaign expenses, logistics, are no problem. Billions of pesos have already been ponied up. More billions will come if these should be necessary. There is no doubt in their minds FPJ will win and win big. The whole masa will rally behind his candidacy, even more than they did behind Erap. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will simply be buried under the FPJ avalanche. So will the other presidential candidates. FPJ’s first act, when he takes Malacañang over, will be to pardon Joseph Estrada. The understanding is that FPJ will just be president for a short period, then resign. Vice President Panfilo Lacson will then take over as president until the year 2010.

On the surface, this scenario looks plausible, even unsinkable.

If Joseph Estrada could win by a landslide in 1998, then an even more popular FPJ – the all time King of Philippine Movies no less – should shoot like a skyrocket to Malacañang. FPJ besides has a wholesome character. He is family man beyond compare. He doesn’t have the baggage of Estrada, a drinker, a womanizer, a gambler, an itchy-fingered raider of the cookie jar, a sybarite. All right, FPJ may not have the brains for the presidency, but that can be remedied as Estrada did. Get the best and the brightest into Malacañang and use them. Pick their brains. Estrada didn’t pick their brains. He grabbed something else and that was his undoing. Besides, FPJ is extremely rich. He will never be Mr. Pickpockets loose in Malacañang.

That is the picture we are getting today. It is on its surface an impressive picture, postcard-pretty, yeah why not.

Except that times have radically changed. We have long left the year 1998 when Erap Estrada descended upon Malacañang like a conquering hero from the space wars. Almost everybody, including many of my educated friends, yes some journalists, were for giving him a chance. I didn’t. From the outset, I knew and smelled he was a phoney, a gifted con artist, a bull inside a china shop who would scramble Malacañang upside down. It didn’t take long before civil society wised up. It didn’t take long either for Erap Estrada to knock about Malacañang like a booze-laden lalapaloosa. You know the rest of the story.

Times have changed. In times of great crisis, it is no longer the masses that decide the fate and future of Philippine politics. It is the middle class, civil society. The military, mayhaps.

They were the shakers and movers of Edsa I and Edsa II. Sure, the masses in 2004 can very well vote FPJ to the presidency. This would be a decisive vote, a clean vote, a democratic vote, a constitutional vote. But an FPJ victory could set off a huge political earthquake right from the epicenter of civil society or the so-called middle forces. It could probably alarm the Left and the military establishment. And they too could move and engulf the nation in class war if not a military takeover.

In all probability, the EDSA forces will storm the streets in 2004 in the event of an FPJ victory. And prevent FPJ from taking over the presidency. That would be the tripwire to a chain reaction of events.

The reasons are ample and let me extrapolate from Edsa I and Edsa II. The middle forces will feel an FPJ victory will not only trivialize but idiotize the presidency. At a time of great historical crisis, when a president of great pith, great moment, great character and greater intellect is direly needed by the nation, the Republic can ill afford to have a president without any preparation for the job. A president straight from the movies. Unlike Estrada, he never threaded a political career from San Juan mayor to senator, to vice president to president. FPJ knows nothing about leadership. The art and science of leading a nation escape him. He would be a complete stranger to enlightening, igniting and educating a citizenry wallowing in poverty, misery, oppression. They must be saved.

The way out is not a movie actor’s lightning-quick fists. It is that of a leader drawing from Churchillian courage and statesmanship, from Quezonian magic delivering the nation from its fears, from a heroic Ninoy Aquino dug deep in the psyche of the nation. We Filipinos once and for all must slay the dragon of celluloid and media celebrity as the top and favored entry into our politics. If we cannot, if FPJ should win in 2004, I am afraid the dam will break down. And we shall all sink or swim and seek the safety of high ground. If not that, the full fury of Armaggedon. Maybe Ronnie Poe does not realize all this, neither does his patron Erap Estrada.

But they must be warned this early that they are tempting the gods.

* * *

Is Abu Sabaya still alive as many believe? Or is he really dead as our leadership claims with the sage nod of Uncle Sam? I had a long night’s talk with an officer who claims he was with the marine commando group that overpowered Abu Sabaya and his banditti while seeking to escape in a pumpboat from Sibuco, Zamboanga del Norte. The officer had the endorsement of two ladies I highly respect and we met for dinner at a secluded Makati village residence.

I would simply have listened politely had the offer not revealed to me he had a tape of Abu Sabaya’s conversations with a pumpboat confidant who had arranged for the escape. The officer said they had succeeded in bribing this confidant. And what was more, the military managed to slip into his cellphone a mini-electronic pellet that recorded the transaction.

"Abu Sabaya had long planned to escape by sea," the officer said. "And we were ready for him. We had already succeeded in monitoring all his movements on land and we had a highly trained dog that smelled his tracks very well. It was when Abu Sabaya started to contact his pumpboat operative, who we managed to bribe, that we were convinced he had already made the decision to escape by sea. At every stage of the preparation, he and the pumpboat operative were in cellphone contact. Exact time, exact location, exact operational details were discussed.

How come, I asked, Abu Sabaya had to divest himself of his smoke glasses, his wallet and other personal belongings? A wallet, I insisted, a man, any man anywhere in the world keeps all the time in his pants pocket, his back pocket. Including his driver’s license. Sabaya, I added, has never been known to take off his dark glasses, they were a part of him, his outlaw personality.

The officer replied that all these personal effects were in a backpack which Abu Sabaya had to unload. He said: "Abu Sabaya had to rest, he had to lie down. He was very tired. It was nighttime. Besides he had no knowledge whatsoever that we were on his tail." But the wallet, why was it in the backpack? The officer answered that the Abu Sabaya bandits wore a special kind of pants that couldn’t hold a wallet well. "They were on the move almost all the time, and the wallet had to be secured well, not in loose pants pockets," he continued.

All right, I may have bought that one. Next question: How did you know Abu Sabaya was on that pumpboat. How do you know you shot him? How do you know it was he? The officer calmly replied that when their lead speedboat finally caught up with and rammed the pumpboat, the shock was so strong the body of Abu Sabaya soared into the air – unconscious. It was then that the marines, using M-16 rifles, fired at Sabaya, at everybody in the pumpboat, a constant roar of high-powered bullets. "These tore into Abu Sabaya’s body, virtually ripped it apart at the stomach. His body went overboard and sank."

Was he sure it was Abu Sabaya? "Yes, we were all equipped with night-vision goggles. Everything was clear as daylight," he said. "He sank instantly because he had bandoliers around his body. Besides with his stomach ripped wide open, the gas had escaped from his body, and so he couldn’t float to the surface. I have the tape of those conversations, we have authenticated Abu Sabaya’s voice. Yes, if you like, you can hear the tape."

Voila, sounds very credible, doesn’t it?