Filipino actor Fernando Poe Jnr is the people's choice for president, yet few really know him - and those who do say he is an introvert
As the image of a man with a gun flickers across the silver screen, the tense silence is shattered by a yell from the audience - 'Fernando, behind you'. Quickly, as if reacting to the warning, the man whirls around, shoots the intruder dead, and the theatre shakes with thunderous clapping.
The incident is replayed countless times during showings of Fernando Poe Junior movies in the southern Philippines and it goes down well. Eid Kabalu, a fan, sums up a school of thought: It's the reason most Muslims will support 'FPJ' for the presidency. Even members of the country's biggest rebel group, the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
'I believe a lot of them will go for him,' says Mr Kabalu, the rebels' 47-year-old spokesman, who admits to being a fan of Poe 'since I was a little boy'. He says it was Mr Poe's personal endorsement of his erap (friend) that enabled Joseph 'Erap' Estrada to sweep heavily Muslim Mindanao in the 1998 presidential polls. Muslims believe the Christian actor is the lone presidential candidate who could end the festering conflict there.
Muslim professor Taha Basman says: 'Poe is liked by Muslims of all levels - the intellectuals, businessmen and the masses.'
He is the only local actor to often portray a Muslim in movies, and always in a good light, Mr Basman explains.
