SAN CARLOS Bishop Gerardo Alminaza has called on the public to boycott “Maid in Malacañang,” a movie supposedly about the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s final 72 hours in power.
In a Facebook post, Alminaza blasted the movie’s trailer as “shameless” for showing the late president Corazon Aquino playing mah-jong with a group of nuns.
“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,” Alminaza said.
Alminaza also urged the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) to “act responsibly on this and perform its mandated duty.”
The MTRCB has given the movie a “Parental Guidance” (PG) classification and urged parents to “conduct their own assessment and use their best judgment to guide their children’s viewing activities.”
“We also note that the said motion picture is a dramatization of the last seventy-two hours of the Marcos family in the Palace in 1986 and does not purport to be a documentary,” MTRCB Chairperson Diorella Maria Sotto-Antonion said.
In a statement on Aug. 2, the Order of Discalced Carmelites of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel expressed dismay over the Marcos-funded film’s historical revisionism.
“The attempt to distort history is reprehensible. Depicting the nuns as playing mah-jong with Cory Aquino is malicious,” said Sr. Mary Melanie Costillas, prioress of the Carmelite monastery in Barangay Mabolo, Cebu City.
“Any serious scriptwriter or movie director could have shown such elementary diligence before making such movie. [A]fter all, many of those nuns are still very much alive and mentally alert,” she added.
Costillas also emphasized that although the nuns in the movie were not wearing the brown religious habit, “the allusion to the Carmelite Order in Cebu is too obvious for anyone not to see.”
In February 1986, as Aquino called for civil disobedience following a fraudulent snap election, she took shelter at the Carmelite monastery in Cebu. It was the height of the People Power revolution and there were threats to her life.
“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,” Costillas said.
“We knew the dangers of allowing Ms. Cory Aquino to hide in the monastery. But we also prayerfully discerned that the risk was worth it, as our contribution to put an end to a dictatorial regime. Indeed, we were ready to defend her at all costs,” she added. Allyssa Mae C. Cruz
