IT’S NOW OFFICIAL: Okay, all you GMA forces baying at Da King, pull back muna and give our friend Fernando Poe Jr. a little more time and room to recover his senses. Sport lang. It was his day yesterday. Give it to him.

For weeks, we sounded the alarum bells about another movie actor attempting to snare the presidency mainly on the basis of his box office popularity.

But FPJ went ahead according to script, the whispered promptings of his handlers and the boisterous cheers of his fans rendering him deaf to more sober counsel.

Give him and his would-be First Lady Susan Roces some time, and the excitement of the moment yesterday at the Manila Hotel will soon die down.

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HIGH BUT FLAT: The surveys have placed FPJ consistently somewhere on the fourth rung after Sen. Noli de Castro, former Education Secretary Raul Roco and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

We see no reason why FPJ’s political stock will suddenly shoot up just because he made an anti-climactic announcement yesterday about his running. The horizontal line indicating his poll standing has been high on the charts, but it is flat.

But of course, if the stock market operators are naughty, they could make the stocks dive (or soar!) as if in reaction to FPJ’s throwing his hat into the ring. They will try anything to simulate some much-needed movement in the bourse.

(In this gullible town, there are still some people who swallow the myth that the stock market, like its New York counterpart, behaves in direct relation to announcements of some public figure.)

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WHAT PLATFORM?: We were holding our breath waiting for a member of the press to ask the actor about his Platform of Government. Eventually someone did.

Like his kumpadre Joseph “Erap” Estrada, FPJ was mumbling his lines most of the time. We did not hear him say “Platform? What’s that?” Instead, we heard something about his advisers writing one soon, just wait.

Even now we are able to get glimpses, despite his dark glasses, of what this actor has up in his head. It is obvious that his handlers still have a lot of retooling to do.

Rouse from bed any of the other presidential aspirants, and ask what his/her program of government is or will be, and you will surely get a passable answer. But not from FPJ.

Anyway, as we said, give him a little more time to warm up to the tricky game.

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WHAT ABOUT PING?: The announcement of FPJ leaves the opposition in a quandary. At the very least, it has divided the ranks.

There is, for instance, Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson reiterating his decision to run regardless of the seeming partiality of some party leaders for FPJ. If Lacson also runs, which is likely at this point, the opposition will stand splintered against the formidable administration machine.

Lacson has reason to complain. The road show that Sen. Edgardo Angara says was designed to give opposition presidential wannabes some exposure and give the party a chance to gauge voters’ preference is clearly tilted in FPJ’s favor.

The pro-FPJ maneuvering among party bigwigs has been going on despite the fact that the actor is not even a member of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, while Lacson is.

Unlike Lacson, FPJ has not invested time and emotion and suffered bruises for the opposition. Yet the nomination appears being delivered to him on a silver platter.

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HOW TO CALL GLORIA: This may sound petty, but it is not. We are referring to the confusion over how to call the President. Is it President Macapagal or President Arroyo? Or President Macapagal-Arroyo (with or without the hyphen)?

With the confusion over the basic question of how the President is to be officially called, is it strange that there is more confusion in other aspects of her governance?

When she allowed herself to be called President Macapagal, with the consent of her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo, we thought she just wanted to cash in on whatever goodwill her father, the late President Diosdado Macapagal, had earned.

But the media carrying the brunt of her public information campaign should at least be consistent in how to call the President. To mix metaphors, di maaring mamangka si Gloria sa dalawang pangalan.

Unless she has made a decision to stop being a hyphenated entity, discard the Arroyo tag and distance herself from the Pidal scandal (it rhymes!).

Btw, Postscript consistently writes it Gloria Macapagal Arroyo without the hyphen, but a hyphen mysteriously appears the next morning!

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CAR BAN HIT: Not being a lawyer, we sought validation of our stand that the selective ban of the Metro Manila Development Authority on vehicles based on their license plate numbers may not apply on vehicles on national roads.

The restriction (erroneously called color-coding ban) becomes a timely topic in view of the daily traffic jams on Metro Manila streets worsened by the pre-Christmas shopping buildup.

We hold that a local (MMDA) ordinance cannot be enforced on selected motor vehicles that are registered and licensed under a national law and traveling through a national road. The local ban may apply on municipal streets, but not on national roads.

We asked Mel “Batas” Mauricio, who runs fast-paced free legal counseling programs on dzBB and Channel 7, and he agreed with us in principle.

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MAURICIO SAYS: Batas Mauricio said in an impromptu reply:

“Can the 14 cities and three towns comprising Metro Manila enact a law or ordinance governing the use of properties falling under the jurisdiction of the national government? More specifically, do they have the power to ban vehicles even over major thoroughfares, such as EDSA or Rizal Avenue, which are national (not city or municipal) roads?

“I think the proper answer is, it depends.

“Under the Constitution, while local governments enjoy autonomy or the freedom to do what they want over areas falling under their territorial jurisdiction, this autonomy does not include the right to legislate over the use of properties that are national in scope. Legislating over the use of these national properties pertains to the proper legislative bodies — which are the House of Representatives and the Senate.

“Although it may be conceded that the local government units, not only in Metro Manila but elsewhere in the country, have been granted the power to pass laws, this right is limited to properties that are considered local, in view of the limited powers of these local governments.

“If and when the laws or ordinances passed by local governments purport to cover even properties considered to be national in character, such as our major thoroughfares and highways, such local laws and ordinances must have the approval, expressly or impliedly, of the national legislative bodies.

“Then and only then can these local laws or ordinances be given effect over these national properties.”

“What does this make of the existing ‘color-coding’ scheme being enforced by the Metro Manila Development Authority?

“Let me answer this by asking: Has Congress, either expressly or impliedly, approved such color-coding scheme?”