Militants Call for Rejection of Balikatan Movie, Real War Games
Anti-U.S. war activists picket Manila city hall

Is the Macapagal-Arroyo government using the movies to make the presence of U.S. forces more acceptable? A controversial entry in this year’s Manila Film Festival is a movie about the joint RP-U.S. war exercises. Critics call for a rejection of both the reel and real war games.

BY GERRY ALBERT CORPUZ
Bulatlat.com

Two militant groups, commemorating on June 12 Philippine Independence Day, picketed the Manila City Hall last week and pressed the city government and festival committee to stop the screening of the movie "Operation Balikatan," one of the entries in this year's film festival.

The militant fisherfolk group Pamalakaya and student activists from Nnara-Youth said the movie is an endorsement of the RP-U.S. joint Balikatan exercises which, they said, is contrary to national interest and strongly opposed by many Filipinos.

Branding it as propaganda film intended to deodorize the forthcoming Balikatan exercises in Sulu this year, the groups said both the Balikatan exercises and its film version deserve the people's collective rejection and condemnation.

"We want to set the record straight. We object this super roadshow presentation for ‘Operation Balikatan’ because it is anti-Filipino and grossly negates the common view and patriotic sentiment of the people," the groups said in a joint statement.

Pamalakaya national chair Fernando Hicap described the movie as "general endorsement of the entry of U.S. troops in the country using cinema as medium to propagate and perpetuate a bogus clamor for increasing U.S. military presence in the Philippines.”

"The 80 million Filipino people were celebrating their most cherished and brilliant victory against the foreign colonizers but the occasion is being affronted with the public showing of a film that promotes Washington's cruel intentions and sinister agenda in Mindanao and entire archipelago,"
Hicap said.

Nnara-Youth secretary general Reggie Vallejos, on the other hand, asked Manila Mayor Lito Atienza and the Manila Film Festival committee to reconsider the screening of "Operation Balikatan" because of its pro-military and pro-U.S. stand on the issue of RP-US joint military exercises.

"We cannot find any pigment of patriotism in the movie. It was one garbage film ready for the picking in any given time at any given place. It maybe as timely as today's headlines, but the headlines did not come from the people's views but from the military and its mother unit in Washington D.C.," Vallejos said.

Pamalakaya's Hicap earlier tagged the film as the “worst festival entry this year.” He said the film version of Balikatan exercises is as worse as the real joint military exercises held in Basilan and other parts of Central Luzon.

"This film appears like an advancer to the Balikatan 03-1 exercises to be held in Sulu this year. It is a cheap propaganda material that seeks political legitimacy to an illegitimate, illegal and highly immoral RP-U.S. joint war games in the South," Hicap said.

"Operation Balikatan" which was directed by Cirio Santiago under his own Premiere Productions started its screening last Wednesday and had its premiere last June 10 at the SM Cinema in Manila.

Multi-awarded actor-director Eddie Garcia and Caloocan City Mayor Rey Malonzo lead the film’s cast. The film, claims its director, is comparable to Ridley Scott's " Black Hawk Down" because of slam-bang action scenes replete with special effects.

Sorry for Premiere Productions

Activists who had seen the film out of curiosity said the film was “a trash and only a waste of money. "

Pamalakaya staff Bert Santos said the film was a dismal failure and way below standard of movies previously produced by Premiere Productions, like the Nora Aunor’s anti-U.S. bases classic “Minsan May Isang Gamu-Gamo,” one of the best festival entries in the 1976 Metro Manila Film Festival.

Malonzo and Manila Mayor Lito Atienza both dismissed the criticisms, saying it was only a fiction meant to entertain the moviegoers. Bulatlat.com

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