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It's been a year now and the Philippine movie industry is celebrating Fernando Poe Jr.'s first death anniversary. Here is something I wrote last year on one of my web logs:

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December, 2004

Maybe it isn’t just me. Maybe the whole country is experiencing a hex right now. Maybe it’s because of the President’s selling out to the kidnappers/decapitators royale in Iraq that we are experiencing national tragedies lately.

Last week, 2 huge typhoons caused flash floods, landslides and the deaths of 500 or more. The week before that, a train from south of Luzon jumped tracks and did a roller-coaster downhill killing women and children – lots of them. Yesterday, Fernando Poe Jr., an icon in Philippine cinema died not being able to recover from the worst case of strokes.

The day before that, I made a joke about his stroke that maybe lack of brain activity caused it. We also love recalling his Erap-like stunts - most notably, his running for President. Now, across our workplace, FPJ Studios sports a half-mast Philippine flag – usually to indicate a national tragedy or death of the President. Perhaps it stands for death of a King.

He wasn’t such a bad guy for me. If he was, he’d still be alive. The flock of people following him and supporting him must signify some level of the King's kindness and charity. He’s the masses’ second hope after Erap. The absence of hope certainly means despair. With the masses accounting to (maybe) 3/4ths of the country's population, maybe his death really is a national tragedy after all.

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