JUST IGNORE FPJ: Malacanang may want to pull back the rabid attack dogs that it unleashed on actor Fernando Poe Jr. after he announced his presidential aspirations last Wednesday.

We think the best way to handle this celluloid pretender to the throne is to ignore him. Call no attention to him.

The more administration barkers yelp at FPJ and make fun of his glaring inadequacies, including his being a high school dropout, the more the poor and the uneducated voters will cling to him.

The fans that are raring to carry FPJ to Malacanang will be with him whatever is said or is not said of him. And those who do not like him in the first place are not likely to switch to him whatever is or is not said of him.

While FPJ’s following is big, it is not likely to grow — unless the administration blunders into an overkill and thereby whips up sympathy for Da King.

As we said earlier, while the line representing the actor’s poll rating is high in the charts, it is flat — it is no longer rising.

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WATCH ROCO: The rival that President Arroyo should watch out for and against whom she should have a well-thought out strategy, is former Education Secretary Raul Roco.

Product differentiation is crucial. There is the lingering feeling among voters that the candidates (except FPJ) are “all the same.” They all appear to be political animals, spewing out the same pro-people promises but acting on the basis of partisan and personal gain.

From where we sit, we see Roco starting to project a different image. He comes on as sincere, intelligent and reform-minded — and bent on changing the political landscape.

As for Sen. Panfilo Lacson, well, he simply has to run. What will he do with the billions in his bulging campaign chest? Anyway, he can always keep the unspent balance, Jose Pidal-style, and go back to the Senate when he loses.

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ERC KILLJOY: After the merriment of Christmas, marked by the usual burst of electricity overuse, consumers will be faced in January with another power rate increase courtesy of the Energy Regulatory Commission.

The ERC tried to lull consumers into submission by describing as only provisional the coming increase by 12 centavos per kilowatt-hour in the power rates being charged by the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).

In this country where the authorities think consumers are gullible, “provisional” means permanent.

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POOR HARDEST HIT: The consumer group National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms warned yesterday that with the economy being consumer-driven, the new power rate increase will leave consumers with less money to spend for other needs.

“How then can we expect the economy to grow?” asked Nasecore president Pete Ilagan, adding that expensive power is another deterrent to investments.

He said residential consumers would be the hardest hit by rate increases because industrial users are being subsidized by residential consumers using at least 300 kwh per month. This is another case of taking from the poor to give to the rich.

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PPA STILL AROUND: What’s this? When President Arroyo promised to slash electricity rates, she failed to explain that she would cut the rates only for big power consumers and pass on the burden to the small household users.

When they carried out the President’s promise to abolish the hated PPA (Produced Power Adjustment) that had doubled electricity bills, it turned out they just broke it down (they called it “unbundling”) and hid PPA under various items in the electric bill.

Adding insult to injury, according to computations of Nasecore, it turned out that after the hocus-pocus, power rates for residential consumers using 300 kwh per month actually increased by at least P375 per month or a whooping P4,500 per year.

Before unbundling, the cost of distribution was only 75 centavos per kwh. After unbundling, distribution cost soared by over 200 percent to about P2 per kwh.

Really now, on whose side is Malacanang?

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CALL SAVED HER: Reader Vincent Silos, emailing from Washington, DC, tells the story of Lauren, a 19-year-old coed who was driving to visit a friend one afternoon. She noticed what looked like an unmarked police car that pulled up behind her with blinkers on.

Lauren’s parents have always told their four children (of high school and college age) never to pull over for an unmarked car, but rather wait until they get to a gas station. Heeding her parents’ advice, Lauren drove on and promptly called #77 on her cell phone to tell the police dispatcher that she would not pull over right away.

She told the dispatcher that there was an unmarked police car with a flashing red light behind her. The dispatcher checked to see if there were police cars where she was (there were none). He told her to keep driving, remain calm and that he had backup already on the way.

Ten minutes later, four police cars surrounded her and the unmarked car. One policeman went to her side and the others surrounded the car behind. They pulled the guy from the car and tackled him to the ground. The man turned out to be a convicted rapist and was wanted for other crimes.

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WHAT ABOUT HERE?: Our addendum to Silos’ report: Do we have here a similar emergency link (similar to #77) with the cell phone companies and the police? If we have police hotlines for emergencies, how do we access them and how fast can the police show up?

What are the ground rules for mobile police outposts (which we noticed to have appeared lately in random places in the evening. What do motorists do when suddenly accosted by armed men posing as policemen or soldiers?

What do we do when a vehicle cuts in front of our car and armed men get off to accost us? In these troubled times, is it all right to bump or run over any armed individual flagging us down with no apparent good reason?

How do we distinguish in a fast-moving scenario if a checkpoint or a flag-down is legitimate or not?

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CELFON SWITCHING: Still on cellular phones, Catanduanes Rep. Joseph Santiago urges the National Telecommunications Commission to draw up new regulations allowing subscribers to keep their mobile phone numbers even if they switch carriers.

A former NTC chief himself, Santiago said: “Mobile phone number portability cannot be avoided by both regulators and operators. It is bound to happen soon, so we might as well prepare for it now.”

In the US, new federal regulations allow mobile phone subscribers in the 100 largest metropolitan areas to retain their phone numbers when they switch carriers. At least a dozen countries also allow it.

He said portability might be easier to implement here because major operators use the same technology — the Global Standard for Mobile (GSM) communications. Subscribers do not have to buy new handsets when they switch carriers.

Consumers would be the biggest beneficiaries of portability, he said, adding that “to discourage switching, operators would be forced to quickly improve and add more value to their services.”

By yearend, mobile phone subscribers in the country are expected to number almost 19 million, up 25 percent from a year ago.