In pandemic year 2020, when the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) had to go online, and it was impossible to do the pomp and pageantry of what has been sold as an annual Philippine film “tradition”, Sen. Imee Marcos claimed it wholly and completely as a Ferdinand Marcos creation from Martial Law year 1975, when the best picture film was “Diligin Mo ng Hamog ang Uhaw na Lupa”.
We liked to dismiss the Marcoses’ claims to culture pre-2022, but none of what Senator Imee says there is a lie.
And despite little of it probably getting into your algorithm, neither is it a lie that in 2024, First Lady Liza Marcos was front and center (literally) of MMFF, not just in the photos for the launch of its purported 50th year in July 2024, but also with her husband, PresidenAt Bongbong at the Konsyerto sa Palasyo para sa pelikulang Pilipino on December 16, and throughout the year, since February, ostensibly stepping into the Imeldific role of joining hands with film industry stakeholders on the promise of supporting the film industry. That the outcome of this is yet another cultural organization called CineGang, Inc. that’s supposed to promote local films to a global audience, which apparently means needing a fancy new office in Makati City, private investors, golf tournament fundraisers, and a Malacañang-hosted first meeting with the First Lady herself in November 2024, is a conversation for another time.
For now, the more important conversation is how it is that after 49 years, the MMFF is still lacking in transparency and credibility, and remains riddled by controversy. That it was created by Marcos Sr. during Martial Law speaks to why.
Created by Proclamation 1459, July 9 1975, the MMFF was seen as “a vehicle for moral regeneration, social development and cultural reawakening in the New Society” where “the commitment of the New Society <was> to enrich Philippine culture, to reawaken the people to their historical heritage and traditional values, and to clarify the Filipino image.”
The MMFF’s identity is bound to being ideologically in sync with government, propping-up as it did Marcos Sr.’s Bagong Lipunan against the backdrop of Martial Law. That 49 years after we are back to the same promise of a Bagong Pilipinas, under Marcos’s son Bongbong, and that the MMFF continues to be embroiled in controversy borne of its lack of credibility, is no surprise.
Politicians across those 49 years have said, over and over again: mabuhay ang pelikulang Pilipino, suportahan natin ang pelikulang Pilipino. But the first step towards supporting Filipino filmmaking, towards ensuring that it flourishes, is to respect its freedom. Martial Law ensured a filmmaking that was unfree. In 1976, a year after the first MMFF and the establishment of the Metropolitan Manila Commission (MMC, pre-cursor to the Metro Manila Development Authority), Marcos Sr. would also appoint as MMC Governor the First Lady herself, she who thought nothing of covering up impoverished Manila for foreign guests. That this leaked into filmmaking goes without saying: it is said that Ishmael Bernal’s Manila By Night had to be re-titled City After Dark because Imelda would not have the world thinking of Manila as a space of squalor, prostitution, violence.
This context is important for MMFF as its rootedness in the Marcos dictatorship surfaces what this festival was about at the onset: a way to sanitize, make palatable, establish a semblance of sanity and decency to, a time when artistic regulation was the rule, free speech disrespected, and thousands were being illegally jailed, disappeared, and killed. And while it can be argued that this time of repression surfaced many of our Philippine film classics, this kind of ferment does not owe anything to the politicians and governance of that time. These good films were made despite the violence and repression, not because of it.
This historicizing also begs the question: why have we not reconsidered, revised, rethought the MMFF the past 49 years? Why has it stayed as it was imagined under a dictatorship? How is it still stuck under the leadership of the MMDA? How did no government—not Cory Aquino’s or her son Noynoy’s, not Erap’s short-lived leadership nor GMA’s prolonged one, and certainly not Duterte’s—seek a reconsideration of the MMFF? And no, this doesn’t mean making it more of an independent film fest, as it was badly done that one year during Duterte’s regime.
A more productive reconsideration would be to look at extricating the MMFF from the government bureaucracy, which only made sense during Martial Law courtesy of repressive state apparatus Metropolitan Manila Commission and Gov. Imelda. This is not a new idea: in many instances film stakeholders have called for this exact same thing, and in 2013, the Quezon City Council went as far as passing a resolution “urging the MMDA” to let go of organizing the festival because it “cannot relate to the real sentiments of people working with the industry.”
Another reconsideration has to do with its goals. If after 49 years the MMFF is still begging for space in our local cinemas, then it’s clear that simply getting a week of no foreign competition does not work. How about actually demanding that government require the largest cinema chains to give local films constant, non-negotiable space because our films deserve it? After all, this is the least that capitalists like the Sys, Gokongweis, Ayalas can do, given what they earn from the film industry.
It is astounding that with so many showbiz personalities turned politicians, the film industry has been unable to demand that local cinema be treated better by local oligarchs who own the largest cinemas in the country.
Finally, isn’t it time to reconsider our sensing of why it is that Filipinos aren’t watching films as much or as often? The simplest answer is cost. Those theater tickets are just too expensive for minimum wage earners; and those who can afford streaming services will certainly wait for films to get on those platforms than spend hard-earned cash on movie tickets.
And why are those tickets so expensive? How much do mall-cinema owners earn from every ticket, how much goes to the distributor, how much goes to government? And finally, how much actually goes back to the people who worked on and invested in these films?
In February 2024 the Metro Manila Council waived the amusement tax imposed on Filipino movies. Effective for three years, this brings down to two the kinds of taxes film producers have to pay: value-added tax and income tax. Ironically, it is during MMFF that the amusement tax is again collected, this time for the benefit of the Mowelfund, the Film Academy of the Philippines, the Motion Picture Anti-Film Piracy Council, the Optical Media Board, and the Film Development Council of the Philippines. The last three are government agencies that get an annual budget so why are they beneficiaries at all? It is unclear who had a seat at the table when these beneficiaries were decided on.
It also needs to be asked: why must LGUs take a cut from films screened in their cities? If LGUs like Las Piñas and Quezon City already stopped charging amusement taxes by 2023, and Pasay could reduce its own collection to 5%, and if the Metro Manila mayors can decide to waive it for three years, why not remove it altogether? If LGUs can survive for three years without taking 10% from a film’s ticket sales, then how different would forever be? (Besides, there’s all this cash going around courtesy of AKAP and AICS, yes? A necessary digression.)
Instead of burdening moviegoers with, and guilt-tripping them into, supporting local films, isn’t it more fair to pass on that burden to the wealthy few who own cinemas and can decide to forego profit margins and unjust taxation in the name of actually supporting local culture?
If the First Lady is actually interested in helping Philippine film, if all those politicians at the awards night actually cared about the industry at all, and if those who get a seat at the Malacañang table actually sought real change—so many of these reconsiderations can be made for Philippine cinema throughout the year.
Why the film industry has settled for one MMFF week per year when they are treated better is beyond explanation. Is the attitude that if it works once a year, making money for cinemas and winning elections for politicians, then the festival isn’t broken, and it’s good enough for them?
But the MMFF is beyond broken. It is a relic, a corpse really, long dead from all its dysfunctions. Let its real 50th year in 2025 be the gift of a burial. Let its reconsideration mean not a resurrection, but a complete reimagination, not just of the festival, but of film as a creative industry, one that speaks to the needs of the majority who make films, beyond big capitalists, oligarchs, and politicos.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files