She's brave. She's sexy. She loves her family. She's the perfect Filipina. And now she's a hit on television.

The TV appearance this month of Darna, a venerable local superheroine, is seen by some in the media business as a triumph of packaging in the seemingly endless ratings battle between the two big networks.

But for the less cynical, plucky Darna, a Philippine version of Wonder Woman who is in her sixth decade as an icon of popular culture, seems to capture the struggle of a depressed people trying to find a way out of poverty and despair.

This month, her show premiered on a local network and, according to its press releases, garnered some of the highest ratings for a new series - an audience share of more than 50 percent.

Small wonder. Darna is probably the most recognizable literary character in the Philippines, certainly better known than the protagonists in the novels of the Filipino national hero, Jose Rizal, or any other piece of local literature.

Darna was created by the comic book writer Mars Ravelo, who described her as possessing the beauty of Venus and the strength of Samson. She made her first appearance in comics in 1950 as a humble village girl named Narda who is given a mysterious white stone which, in times of danger, transforms her into Darna.

She not only flies and vanquishes evil with her super strength, but she also looks fabulous in a red-and-gold bikini, headdress and knee-high red boots.

The following year, the character made her movie debut in the form of screen queen Rosa del Rosario. Since then there have been 14 Darna movies as well as two spoofs starring male comedians in drag as the supervixen.

Perhaps the most memorable Darna, and the one most familiar to this generation, was superstar Vilma Santos, who is now the mayor of her home town of Lipa City, south of Manila. She starred in five movies about the superheroine between 1973 and 1980 and remains a big box-office draw.

Darna is now a true cultural icon. There has been a Darna ballet and a comic book with a gay Darna character called Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah.

One might even argue that the Narda-Darna duality represents the Filipino identity: The colonized embracing the colonizer and assuming its traits.

When Darna first appeared 55 years ago, the Philippines was in the midst of postwar reconstruction. The country was independent but the Americans were still around and the economy was booming. The prevailing mood was one of optimism.

Millions of Filipinos had begun to migrate to Manila in search of economic opportunities. Darna reflected the upbeat mood of the time, when anything seemed possible and all obstacles could be surmounted.

Fast-forward to 2005, and the nation seems mired in perpetual economic crisis.

According to a survey in March by the respected Social Weather Station polling organization, the economic situation is gloomy, with personal pessimism at a record high, physical hunger at a serious 13 percent, and those who rate themselves as poor at 48 percent.

Pessimists are defined as those who say their quality of life will worsen over the next 12 months.

The recent survey revealed that the number of pessimists had risen to 34 percent, a record high since the question was first asked in a 1983 survey, while optimists dropped away to 20 percent, matching the previous record low set in October 2000.

Hope has given way to disillusionment as elected public officials are accused of corruption, crime grows, the courts are clogged and the streets feel tattered and shoddy. The country seems stuck in an endless dilemma.

To escape, close to eight million Filipinos are abroad in search of a decent wage. The nearly US$8 billion (HK$62.4 billion) that overseas Filipinos send home annually keeps the economy afloat.

According to the Asian Development Bank, 2,700 Filipinos leave each day for foreign countries as contract workers, immigrants or tourists hoping to find work. More than 65 percent of contract workers are women. Call them modern-day Darnas saving their country, not with superpowers, but with their salaries as nurses or domestic helpers.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Agency reports that the Philippines supplies about 25 percent of all overseas nurses. The clamor to find work abroad is such that, according to the chancellor of University of the Philippines medical school, Jaime Galvez Tan, there are 5,500 doctors enrolled in 45 nursing schools across the country. It's easier for a Filipino nurse to find employment overseas - and make more money in the process - than for a Filipino doctor to make it at home.

The social circumstances have changed, but Darna's drawing power has not. True, many viewers no doubt tuned in to the new show out of curiosity - and to see how the perky young actress Angel Locsin looked in the tiny costume. But the show is still trying to find its legs, so to speak: The special effects are clunky, the dialogue stilted and there are too many shots of panicked citizens fleeing insect swarms, snakes or whatever disaster threatens.

If Darna proves to be a long-running hit it will be because it has aligned itself squarely with its target audience: Average people struggling to put food on the table, whose only hope is to fly to another country to seek a better life.

The stage was set in the first episode where, in true soap-opera fashion, young Narda's mother cries: "Why are they doing this to us? Is it because we're poor?''

The oppressed Narda is always enmeshed in the kind of crisis familiar to Filipinos: She has a family to support and a brother to put through college, she's in danger of losing her job, her employer yells at her all day and the boy she loves is keeping time with another girl.

She offers herself as a stand-in for the millions of viewers who face the same daily burdens.

And then she turns into Darna and saves the world.

Since the mid-1990s the two major television networks in the Philippines have been locked in a vicious ratings war. For many years the top network was ABS-CBN, the jewel of the Lopez group of companies, an old-fashioned oligarchic empire which includes the electric company, telecommunications, water utilities, magazine publishing, cable TV, Internet and real estate developments.

Last year it was dethroned by GMA which, according to the Nielsen ratings in February, had 18 of the top 20 shows on local television and all of the top 10.

Darna may help GMA stay there. GMA started the fantasy trend with Mulawin, an action-adventure series about two warring races of bird people with magical powers. ABS-CBN countered with Krystala, an action series about a young girl with superpowers.

As Darna flies, ABS-CBN is preparing its next big-budget fantasy TV series, Ang Panday, the adventures of a valiant blacksmith who battles the forces of evil with his magic sword. This character was most famously portrayed on the big screen by the late Fernando Poe Jr, who ran for president in 2004.

Television fantasy, and television itself, provides a quick and easy escape from harsh reality. But television in the Philippines is not just a source of entertainment and escape. It is the main source of news and information and, as the electoral victories of news anchors and TV personalities have demonstrated (vice-president Noli de Castro rose to prominence as a news reader), it practically determines the outcome of elections.

Now television offers something that has been lacking from people's lives in these disillusioned times. It peddles heroes, reminding us that in the darkest hour, there is always hope.

At least for as long as the ratings are high.