‘Ime, dinaya yata ako ni Leni”
IT is more than an hour past 6 p.m. on Thursday in Manila as of posting time. By now, the world premiere of “Martyr or Murderer”– the trailer of the sequel to director Daryl Yap’s controversial 2022 movie “Maid in Malacanang” — should be complete, and most certainly, a barrage of followers and bashers should be rabidly posting their sentiments, especially about the explosive ending of the said reel.
Promising a “pasabog” to members of media at the grand press conference for the Viva Films franchise, the end of the trailer shows now Senator Imee Marcos, receiving a phone call from now President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. over six years ago. Mr. Marcos sounds very troubled on the other end as he says to his sister, “Ime, dinaya yata ako ni Lani.”
According to Yap, he had to sit down with a total of six lawyers at Viva’s headquarters on Wednesday to have several versions of the trailer approved. “This one that you’re seeing is the tamest of all,” he said in Filipino before the media preview.
The said trailer is now available on Viva Films’ official social media pages as well as that of Yap’s own movie company, Vincentiments, which is co-producing this March 1 release.
Meanwhile, in reply to The Manila Times straight forward question just moments ago whether his movie will provide a definitive answer to the question if former president Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was a “martyr or murderer” — especially in relation to the assassination of former Senator Benigno Aquino, which dramatically changed the course of the history of the Philippines–he said he would maintain that the movie is not a political film, but like Maid in Malacañang is a story of a family at its very core. In fact, the director said that MoM is of the dramedy genre–drama-comedy, that is–merely showing how a family would carry on in exile while a nation judges its patriarch as a killer. Yap added only a person who has no regard for family would brand his film political or a historical revisionist once out.
MoM stars Cesar Montano as Marcos Sr, Ruffa Guttierez as former first lady Imelda Marcos, Diego Loyzaga as the young Marcos and Cristine Reyes as Imee Marcos, with former Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko” Moreno as Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.
(More on this story on The Manila Times Entertainment.)
