DIRECTOR JOEL LAMANGAN is very vocal in saying that his movie “Oras de Peligro”, written by Bonifacio Ilagan and Eric Ramos, aims to rectify the wrong notions cultivated by paid political revisionists who want to drastically alter our history.
“Oras de Peligro” chronicles the four last days of the Marcoses in Malacanang before they left for Hawaii through the use of actual video news footage culled from various reliable sources like CNN and Radio Veritas.
It also shows Marcos calling for snap elections, then the massive cheating happened, prompting patriotic Comelec canvassers who cannot stomach the fraudulence to walk out of the PICC as an act of protest.
There was a coup plot to oust Marcos and his former defenders Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and AFP Vice Chief of Staff Lt. Gen Fidel Ramos defected from his camp and sided with the rebels.
Cardinal Sin then called on Filipinos to go to EDSA at Camp Crame to give emotional support and supplies to them. And many people indeed trooped to EDSA, the crowd swelling to hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians.
The deposed Marcos family and friends finally left Malacanang on February 26. They boarded a US Air Force helicopter that took them to Clark Air Base from where they boarded a plane that took them to Guam and later, to Hawaii.
The US government documented their entrance while carrying millions of dollars in jewelry, gold, stocks and cash that took the US Customs a long to list them all down. With them gone, people stormed Malacanang and rejoiced for their departure.
All the videos of these significant moments in our history and its ramifications are included in the film.
They are intertwined with the more personal story of a family who undergoes a heartrending personal tragedy while the People Power revolution was unfolding.
The movie actually starts with Beatriz (Cherry Pie Picache) while buying food for her family in the slum area where they live.
Her husband, Dario (Allen Dizon), is a jeepney driver who is sympathetic with the activists who want to hold a strike against the government. But his reactionary wife forbids him to get involved.
They have two kids, Dave Bornea and Therese Malvar.
Dave is applying for a job in a company where employees are on strike. When cops arrive to arrest the strikers, he and his friend are also arrested by mistake.
When tragedy strikes their family, Therese tries to borrow money from a dirty old man (Allan Paule), who preys on young girls and wants to bed her, but she resists.
The movie is uniformly well acted by the big ensemble cast.
Direk Joel says that the various experiences suffered by Cherry Pie’s family are all based on real life encounters of real people. They are presented in the film as composite characters.
One of the most affecting sequences in the movie shows the family being oppressed by corrupt cops who don’t want them to get hold of the dead body of their relative.
They had to spirit out the remains of their loved one in secret from the morgue to take it home and give it a proper wake and funeral.
It only goes to show that when you are poor, those who are in power can easily abuse you and exploit you and oppress you.
The poor are mere pawns in the high stakes shenanigans of corrupt politicians and their mendacious lackeys.
We’re just afraid that this edgy movie, a no-nonsense archetype of a serious-minded confrontational film that tells the truth, will not sit well with ordinary viewers who all prefer escapist entertainment.
We all know that it’s the trolls of the current administration who succeeded in rewriting our recent history.
They made gullible young people believe in all the lies that they are selling by using the now very popular social media outlets, notably Tiktok.
They came up with dubious mini docus and film clips that transcended polemics and platitudes.
And Gen Z and millennial crowds easily lapped it all up without questioning their veracity. How sad. Really!
In our heart of hearts, we are honestly praying lots of people would watch “Oras de Peligro” since we are truly facing very dangerous times right now, where moral certitude is of primary significance but is often disregarded by those who are just hungry for power.
They say hope springs eternal but we can’t shake off this nagging feeling that we are fighting a losing battle as people today seem to not anymore know the difference between right and wrong.
We’re afraid the majority of our people has no keen sense of history, and that’s why history is now clearly repeating itself with impunity.