I - despite growing up in a movie gaga town in the 70's, i have no recollection, no matter how i tried, of sweltering afternoons being whiled away watching fpj movies inside my hometown's nipa roofed moviehouse.
the first fpj movies i saw were those shown as the other film in a double bill(the other film being the soft porn ones) in an off campus rundown theater of this genteel university town south of manila. this was when i went to this protestant university in the late 80's.
batas sa aking kamay (law in my hands, 1987) was it.
oh the pun i had fun telling people as to the movie's title and the thing i most likely did with my hands while watching the soft porn one.
II -- in a fit of trivial pursuit, my roommate regaled me with his pop culture acumen by claiming that fpj was also referred to as da king. the royal ambition of the moniker ticked off something Macbethian inside me.
college was when i was knee deep into progressive causes. the sobriquet was as anachronistic and paternalistic as it could get for me then. and maybe now, as well.
III -- the first fpj movie that somehow got to me was this celso ad castillo feature(asedillo). i must have seen this in one of those ubiquitous teach ins during my college salad days.
in a pivotal scene, fpj (playing a southern tagalog rebel leader) enters a town and everyone slams their windows shut on him.
in his trademark rasp, he then addresses the cowed townfolk, "huwag ninyo akong talikuran, ako ay isda, kayo ang aking dagat. (don’t turn your backs on me, I am a fish, and you are my ocean."
having had a passing familiarity with some of chairman mao's (yup, that chubby chinese guy) literature, i was more than taken aback by the almost direct allusion to one of mao's more arcane pronouncements by this reticent action star. i believed chairman once said “the guerrilla is like a fish in the sea.”
IV -- two words: lo' waist.
V -- just recently, i asked my mother why she never went out with manong tonyo. his family, rich but pedestrian, owned the only abattoir in the island town i grew up in.
i remember him leading this rowdy posse, all of them dressed similarly. the low-waisted jeans with a leather belt, a collared plain shirt (never a t-shirt) and pointy leather boots.
i asked my mother was it because he was most likely a pedophile? my other image of manong tonyo was this: always with a young boy in tow wherever he went around then. my mother spent some precious minutes of pan pacific long distance call just laughing at my suggestion.
in her best sunday school teacher sing song voice, mama explained that manong tonyo only hired these young boys to always accompany him to complete the fpj look that he was after.
i didn't get mom's explanation until i saw an fpj film with the cute pre-pubescent jay ilagan as his co-starrer. but then again, manong tonyo must have had some fun with these boys as well. or else, mom would have hooked up with him then in a heartbeat.
VI -- and then cable tv happened. and then i saw those archival fpj movies. there was there was this lino brocka disappointment (santiago) where fpj played a guilt-racked guerrilla fighter.
but one i can still quite remember was this feature where he stretched the limits of cinematic fictional license by becoming a muslim warrior (perlas ng silangan).
my new york friend, who grew up in mindanao, claimed that because of this movie, fpj had the undying fealty of the muslim voting populace. in the most recent presidential elections, the predominantly muslim areas down south went red for bush, i mean, for fpj.
talk about lasting and potent presidential campaign admaking in the land of the gullible. carl rove must have studied under fpj for quite a profitable period of time.
VII - when i started to date men, this university professor who ushered me out of the closet told me that it's all in the kiss. according to his famed boyfriend taxonomy 101, one can tell which one's the right guy by the way he kisses you.
by this test, an fpj guy would never be my boyfriend. that if he would give me the time of day to begin with.
i most probably would have gone out with with a tony ferrer (yup, that lame pinoy version of double 007) kind of guy. he would literally suck the face of the girl and shamelessly bask in the warm glow of the girl's chagrin at being kissed by a pompadoured man.
even if i personally detest erap (yup, that thieving ex president), i would have gone out with his type as well but never the fpj type. in the movies, erap would kiss the girl and then wink at the audience almost like the shakespearean richard III.
the forever reticent fpj type of dude would never be caught dead expressing his love for you by blurting out those three precious words. he just sat there like a moron even if takes a year, he's still going to be there -- silent, even morose at times.
but at any moment he deemed right, he would lift the girl off the ground and kissed her hard but never moving his lips. a dry oral hump indeed. who needs that?
VIII - my first newspaper job back in manila had me subalterning for this gruff city editor of a broadsheet better known as that one with a celebrity editor in chief. this editor in chief moonlights as a host of this low rating but ad heavy late night tv gabfest.
all news story for this city editor can be juiced down to basic class conflicts, the fight between good and evil, freedom against bondage.
our paper was never known for its social advocacies. in fact, in the industry, we were jokingly referred to as the society paper with a front page news section.
but despite this fact, this city editor would always make it known to me that to be the good journalist that i was ostensibly trying to become then, one should know when to do battle for that good fight, whatever that meant to him.
and he would quote fpj movie lines, the way a revival pastor would quote scriptural verses, whenever he felt the urge to proselytize me and the other cub reporters.
his favorite was "kapag puno na ang salop, kailangan kalusin."
perhps, there must have been more fpj movie folk wisdown that he would have quoted although the spaced out cub desk editor that i was, i'm sure i had them slink over my head.
this city editor died the very same year i decided to come work as a nurse here in new york. had he known me abandoning the print trade to clean up some white asses here in the land of milk and honey, he would have looked me in the eye, and without flinching, would have asked me "would fpj be doing that kind of shit you're doing now?" probably not, sir.
IX - most manila film critics claim fpj's best film was alamat (legend, 1972). have never seen the film and, i guess, most of my generation either. explains perhaps why the young people's voting bloc never went to fpj during the last presidential election.
here's a piece of recent electoral legend. during the heat of the elections, should you have googled the word "bangungut ng bayan" (national nightmare)what comes first in the results list was the fpj for president website. stuff of legend, you say? this ain't no ripley's.
X - talk about lore. here's one more. after my stint in that celebrity broadsheet, i had the misfortune of being an entertainment editor of a spunky little taglish tabloid that finally had its end run two years ago.
anyway, in one of those interminable dull showbiz gatherings i am forced to attend--must have been the birthday party of a big film studio boss--guess who made a surprise show?
as the party wore on, fpj was patently drunk. slurring his sentences and at one time, dismissing his lovely wife curtly in front of so many people.
so, i asked a senior movie scribe beside me if this is quite a normal thing for fpj, i mean his not being so good at holding his drink. the movie columnist nodded.
and then he added, "you're not going to write this in your paper, are you? and i asked him why not? "because he's da king."
the next day at the office, i wrote about how this sexy starlet was seen with another female personality making out inside her new sports utility vehicle in a not so patronized shopping mall's parking lot.