Poe was posthumously declared a National Artist of the Philippines for Film on 23 May 2006 by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The award was confirmed by President Benigno Aquino III on 20 July 2012, and was presented to his family on 16 August.
Ronald Allan K. Poe was the son of Filipino actor Allan Fernando R. Poe (Fernando Poe, Sr.) and Elizabeth Kelley, an American. He was born in San Carlos City, Pangasinan. His parents were not yet legally married when he was born on August 20, 1939, although his parents were later married in 1940. His opponents tried to derail his bid for the presidency when they sought to disqualify him as an illegitimate son of a non-Filipino mother. He was the second among six siblings and it was his brother Andy who was really named Fernando Poe, Jr. which FPJ later adopted, to bank on the popularity of his father who was a top actor in his time. Conrad Poe, a Filipino actor is FPJ's half-brother, the illegitimate son of the late Fernando Poe Sr. and actress Patricia Mijares. Pou is the original spelling of the family's surname from his grandfather, playwright Lorenzo Pou, a Catalan migrant from Majorca, Spain, who ventured into mining and business in the Philippines.