Time Magazine is such an influential media star - that people would die to be named Time's "Man of the Year." And can die blissfully, thereafter - in that thought.

After 60 years, the prestigious magazine had named some of the Asian leaders and inspiring individuals who shaped Asia into what it is today. And as time would have it - theirs is a story of the men and women who transformed Asia from poverty to powerhouse, from imitator to being imitated and from being colonized to leading the global economy to a new era.

Remarkably - many of the cited icons of Asian leadership are the fighters of democracy and freedom. They are not the Japanese, Taiwanese or Korean leaders who steered their economies to superstardom. They were not the iron-fisted tyrants - except that man from that "Fine City" of Singapore - where you are fined for almost anything - Mr. Lee Kwan Yew who transported the small city state into one of the most progressive in the world.

Singapore's per capita income is close to US$30,000 (P1.5 million) a year - just a shade below that of Britain, her long-time colonizer.

Mentioned prominently are India's Mahatma (Great Soul) Gandhi and his protégé Jawaharlal Nehru who combined their charisma and fierce passion for independence to bring progress to what is now India - the world's most populous democracy. Gandhi was the leader of the world's first successful non-violent movement for independence while Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, kept the national flame biased for the poor and the afflicted.

In obscure Burma was cited the defiant story for freedom of Aung San, who was murdered at a young age of 32. Daughter Aung San Suu Kyi is today indeed proving to be her father's daughter by leading the rebellion in her beloved country. For this, she is now incarcerated for over 4,000 days. The march for freedom continues.

Time rightfully credits Li Ka-Shing, 78, a hands down choice as the most successful Chinese businessman of his generation with assets of US$18 billion - who in a parallel move is now a renowned philanthropist as well. In the same breath, Time Magazine credits the darling of Bangladesh and Nobel Prize for Peace Winner Mahammad Yunus who in 1974 introduced the first micro-financing bank for the poorest of the poor called Grameen Bank. His successful operations serving collateral-empty and dirt-poor folks of 6.6 million in his native land, is now replicated the world over (from Uganda to the USA) serving 100 million destitute folks.

For sheer inspiration that had reshaped the contorted lives of modern man, Buddhism's main representative The Dalai Lama is the prime pick for Inspiring Icons of the magazine. He believes in the material world but is not of it - his holiness does not lie in his indifference but in his detachment to the world's values.

Right behind her is Mother Teresa, founder of the Missionaries of Charity who spend all their lives - stripped of any material possession and serving only the very poor and the hungry the world over. Dubbed as a "living saint" in her time, Mother Teresa has moved nations to tears and to go for charity work.

It is our national pride therefore to have our former president Cory Aquino as one of Asia's top leaders in the last 60 years. She is credited for inspiring non-violent People Power and prayer that led to the toppling of the Berlin Wall, the Iron Curtain and all types of tyranny in the world. A reluctant presidential candidate in 1986, the housewife responded to the call for greatness by destiny in running and then ousting the 20-year dictator Ferdinand Marcos into exile in Hawaii in the same year.

Philippine media was afraid to cover the dictator's regime - until the duo of Eugenia Apostol (publisher) and Letty J. Magsanoc (editor) dared to chronicle the waning days of the dictator through a fiery magazine which partly led to the early politicalization of the Middle Class, a strong component of the 1986 revolution that brought down the Marcos regime. The women duo then went a step further and helped unseat another Philippine President, Erap Estrada through media exposes of official theft and abuse, which also led to Estrada's downfall and incarceration.

Rightfully, the two were credited by Time under Inspirations.

Efren "Bata" Reyes - has won P20 million in one World Pool tournament - but he remains toothless, child-like (bata nga) and kind to the poor and needy to whom he had shared his earnings. His creative repertoire of shots is as legendary as his big heart for those who have less in life. He has ruled the game - with a crafty intellect and a genial demeanor, making him a double champion. Time Magazine has so written.

Of course, heroes in the making are, new world pool champion - Ronato Alcano, who could be Reyes' heir apparent in the sport that is now attracting hordes of fans and players alike. Not the least would be - the People's Champion in boxing - Manny Pacquiao, now considered the world's second best boxer, pound-for-pound after American Mayweather.

Today (Manila time), half of the world will hold its breath as Las Vegas breathes fire anew to greet the Finale - the third grudge fight between two of the world's greatest fighters today - our Manny Pacquiao and "El Terible" Mexico's Erik Morales. A new Pinoy hero in the making is really in the works. Nobody is betting on Morales in the country - only whether he will or will not last the distance today.

This week, of course, had its shares of villains in the headlines.

Former senator and perennial coup plotter Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan was caught "with his pants down" in a Greenmeadows subdivision, an upscale residential enclave in the suburbs of Quezon City last week. Gringo who led a series of bloody coups against president Cory Aquino was twice elected senator. He has been implicated in fresh rebellion moves from the Oakwood Mutiny in Makati to the so-called February Coup 2006 - that never was.

While being detained and charged criminally, Honasan will reportedly run again for the Philippine senate in May 2007 - crying political persecution, perhaps (because of his arrest and detention) as his campaign slogan.

The other villain comes in the form of Atong Ang - erstwhile gambling buddy of former president Estrada who was flown in to the Philippines from the FBI to the NBI for various crimes of plunder and what not. He is now confined in a flea-infested Quezon City jail where congestion had made some inmates "sleep while standing" inside the obviously bad-smelling prison cells.

Only the legal process - and much later, the cruel verdict of history - will unmask - irreversibly - whether the likes of Honasan and Ang are heroes or goats in sheep's clothing.

Who could be Asia's next heroes for the coming 50 years?