Josh Hartnett gets tight security

MT. DIWALWAL, Compostela Valley – Security has been tightened in this small mining town where US actor Josh Hartnett and a Hollywood movie outfit are filming the $18-million detective thriller “I Come With the Rain.”

Providing security for Hartnett of “Black Hawk Down” and “Pearl Harbor” fame, are elements of the Alpha Company of the Army’s 28th Infantry Battalion and a number of barangay militias.

Aside from Hartnett, multi-awarded Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung and 18 other foreign crew members of the Central Films Production, also arrived here for the first ever Hollywood endeavor in this part of the country.

Mt. Diwalwal is home to more than 50,000 small-scale miners who have been eking out a living in the area since the gold rush in the early 1980s. In many cases, rivalry among different mining groups ended in violence and even murder.

Hartnett and the production crew are staying at the Pink House Hotel in Barangay Depot near Mt. Diwalwal and in the house of Compostela Valley Rep. Manuel Zamora in Poblacion Monkayo.

Army Lt. Bienvenido Datuin Jr. said the security blanket covers not only the foreign actors and filmmakers but also their Filipino counterparts, represented by Production 56.

“We also have to provide security for the local production crew aside from Hartnett, himself,” Datuin told The STAR.

The security arrangement, he said, is on an “airport-to-airport” basis. “We provide them security even the moment they step out of the Davao International Airport” Datuin said.

Datuin explained that his men work in three groups. One group secures the places where the actors and the production crew stay while the two other groups take care of security at the site of the filming and along the roads leading to it.

“We have provided them with all the security requirements needed for the shooting here in Mt. Diwalwal,” Mt. Diwalwal barangay captain Franco Tito said.

He also shrugged off concerns that Mt. Diwalwal is a communist rebel stronghold.

 “We have taken care of that matter already and the visiting filmmakers could be assured of security in our area,” he said.

Datuin said they had a month to prepare for the security arrangement for Hartnett and company.

As local officials reveled at hosting a Hollywood film outfit, local villagers and commuters had to endure some inconveniences like having to wait for hours for some roads to open. Many commuters – mostly small miners – were stranded when R-1 road was closed to traffic for hours as part of the security preparations. The road leads to Mt. Diwalwal poblacion.

One Daisy Montero, a local resident in Mt. Diwalwal, ignored the risk of being turned away and headed for Diwalwal. “I am very hungry already. I cannot take it anymore,” Montero said.

Some villagers said the local partners of the filmmakers were overzealous in protecting Hartnett to the extent that even the press was not allowed to get near the actor and other celebrities. But sources said the actor himself was accommodating.

A certain Erwin Aton, a local production assistant, said a press conference would be held on Aug. 7, but gave no other details.