National Artist Gerardo de Leon directed many masterpieces, one of them the gripping and powerful The Moises Padilla Story (1961), based on the Free Press account of Leon O. Ty.
Moises Padilla was a town mayor in the ’50s from the South tortured and murdered by his political enemies. President Ramon Magsaysay personally carried the body of Padilla, saying he was a martyr of democracy.
Leopoldo Salcedo played Moises Padilla, with Joseph Estrada as the killer.
Screenplay by Cesar Amigo and music by Tito Arevalo, brother of the director. — RKC