His detractors kept up a steady stream of warnings that he might take off to escape to Brunei, Indonesia, or Malaysia. Which was really silly, there being no need for him to escape: The administration had offered him exile.

And as it turned out, he made no move to escape. Yet today, as he prepares to fly to Hong Kong for his long-delayed knee operation, they are again saying he may flee to China and not come home.

***

These fears are similar to those expressed these days that the hundreds of thousands of mourners in the funeral procession for Fernando Poe Jr. might be manipulated to stage anti-administration demonstrations.

They keep repeating these warnings. On the other hand, the family of FPJ assures the public it will carefully monitor the behavior of the mourners in the funeral march.

From what one sees in the orderly conduct of the endless multitudes paying their last respects to Poe in the Sto. Domingo Church, people waiting in line for up to eight hours to view the body, one is inclined to believe the family. The family has no wish to convert the occasion into a political carnival.

***

In the months and years to come, social scientists may figure out what it is that makes hundred of thousands, maybe more than a million people, ready and willing to wait in line for hours to have their two or three seconds at the bier.

The first wave of Mindanao sympathizers joined the line as soon as they got off the buses. That was at least a kilometer and maybe seven hours away.

FPJ did not die while holding a high office as in the case of President Ramon Magsaysay. Nor was he assassinated for his principles and courage as in the case of Benigno Aquino.

FPJ, when he got his fatal stroke, was an actor, businessman, and a defeated presidential candidate. Yet in the public estimate, his ranking is not less than theirs.

The national outpouring of grief, the personal sense of loss at his funeral today will confirm that.