Catholic Bishop of San Carlos Gerardo Alminaza called for a “boycott” for the wrongful depiction of the crucial moments in 1986 in the movie ‘Maid in Malacanang’ and dared the MTRCB to exercise its mandated duty
Catholic Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of the central Philippine diocese of San Carlos called for a “boycott” and a public apology for the film ‘Maid in Malacañang’, describing the film as “shameless.”
This criticism arose following the ongoing backlash of the controversial film about the last 72 hours of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s family in Malacañang before the 1986 People People Revolution toppled the dictatorship.
“The producer, scriptwriter, director and those promoting this movie should publicly apologize to the Carmelite nuns, to President Cory Aquino’s family and to the Filipino people,” CBCP News quoted Alminaza.
The Bishop also challenged the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, which is under the Office of the President, to act on the issue.
“Would the MTRCB act responsibly on this and perform its mandated duty,” he asked.
He released his claims after seeing the trailer of the film showing the late president Corazon "Cory" Aquino playing mahjong with a group of nuns at the height of the February 1986 People Power.
Despite not wearing the Carmelites' brown religious habit, Superior Mary Melanie Costillas, prioress of Carmelite Monastery in Cebu City's Mabolo district, said that the allusion to them was too obvious for anyone not to catch.
Sr. Costillas criticized how the movie suggested that the congregation accepted the late president Cory in their monastery and leisurely played while the country was in shambles.
“The attempt to distort history is reprehensible. Depicting the nuns as playing mahjong with Cory Aquino is malicious,” said Costillas.
”The truth was that we were then praying, fasting and making other forms of sacrifices for peace in this country and for the people's choice to prevail,” she added.
The director of the film, Daryl Yap, responded on Tuesday saying that he does not see anything wrong with the depiction as it was only meant to show them “just passing time and having a game between friends” as posted on his official Facebook page VinCentiments.
Tags: #dictator, #films, #history