The Metro Manila Film Festival is not achieving the purpose for which it was originally intended. The festival was supposed to encourage producers to make quality films and not make movies intended only to make money at the box office. That is why generous cash gifts are given to winning movies. That is also what the judging is supposed to encourage: quality movies. That is not how the MMFF is turning out.

Judges and festival organizers now give priority to the box-office incomes of the movies. The lead of show-biz stories on the festival is how much this or that movie made in ticket sales. Also, the judges put priority on fantasy movies, special effects, comedies and sequels of box-office hits—hardly the ingredients of quality movies.

The most awarded movie, including best picture and best actor (Bong Revilla), is another reincarnation of the “Panday” series popularized by Fernando Poe Jr. “Shake, Rattle and Roll” is now on its nth sequel. Aren’t you tired of that yet? The most meaty of the entries, “Mano Po,” another sequel, got very few awards, and those it got only because Sharon Cuneta is the leading star.

The “Panday” franchise also got the award for best special effects, but they are not that great, as I see it. Many of the entries are fantasy movies, but they are not that good, either. That includes “Wapakman,” a superhero flick that capitalized on Manny Pacquiao’s hero status as a boxer. But “Wapakman” was kulelat in the box-office race and in winning awards. That should teach Pacman that just because he is considered by Filipinos as a boxing hero, he cannot do everything, nor be anything that he wants to be. His foray into show biz should open his eyes to the fact that while Filipinos adore him as a boxer, they do not want him poking his nose and fingers into everything. Manny, don’t be like other flash-in-the-pan boxers; be like Flash Elorde who was truly a great boxer and deserves the adulation of his countrymen.

Manny’s unfortunate foray into show biz reminds me of another celebrity
who went into show biz and politics with disastrous results. Mikey Arroyo produced several movies, banking largely on his being the son of the President. All of them were total failures, both in the box office and in quality. So Mikey ran for congressman of Pampanga and won, also largely because of his mother. But what did he do in Congress? Slept and increased the number of racehorses in his stable. Mikey was not cut out to be a movie star, nor to be a politician, nor to be a sportsman. Without the President as his mother, he is next to nothing.

Manny Pacquiao should learn from Mikey. Know your limits.