Gabriela launches assault on distillery

Members of the women’s group Gabriela has launched an offensive against Destileria Limtuaco to pressure the maker of Napoleon Quince brandy to pull out its controversial "kinse años" advertising campaign.

Gabriela president Liza Maza said members of the group will begin trooping to bars where Napoleon brandy is sold and distribute flyers while urging customers to boycott the liquor brand.

Maza said members will also conduct a signature-gathering campaign. The group will urge citizens to flood Destileria Limtuaco with protest letters and e-mails.

"We will gather signatures supporting this petition against Napoleon Quince. We will be asking liquor store owners to post "hindi kami nagbebenta ng kinse años" signs and we will also be making the rounds of bars to distribute boycott flyers. Chain e-mails have been circulated and we encourage everyone to mail their letters of protest to Destileria Limtuaco, to concerned government agencies and to local officials," she said.

Maza added that as part of their nationwide protest action against Destileria Limtuaco, provincial chapters of Gabriela have also started picketing provincial offices of the firm.

"The campaign is gaining much momentum and support. We are confident that the people’s vigilance and action will soon bring the billboards down," she said.

Meanwhile, various religious groups affirmed their support to Gabriela yesterday in the campaign to bring down the Napoleon billboards.

Joining Gabriela in its crusade are members and leaders of the Association of Major Religious Superiors Womens Desk, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines Office on Women, the Ecumenical Womens Forum, the Religious of the Good Shepherd, Sisters of Charles Borromeo, the Benedictine Sisters, and the Women of the Philippine Independent Church.

Maza said that aside from women, men who call themselves Men in Purple have also joined the campaign.

"This multi-sectoral gathering of women and men shows the widespread outcry against this offensive advertisement. With everybody against them, Destileria Limtuaco should realize they have indeed made a terrible mistake in coming out with an advertising campaign that attacks women and children," Maza said.

Controversial

Members of the film industry yesterday echoed the widening demand for the pull out of a controversial brandy ads, supporting calls for a boycott and even branding the brandy commercials as "lascivious and vulgar."

Bibeth Orteza, who has written scripts for equally controversial movies, said the advertisements were "malicious from the start."

"Is there any wife who would question his husband or get jealous over a 15-year-old brandy?" Orteza, who also happens to be Gabriela women’s party’s director for the culture and arts, told reporters in a press conference in Quezon City yesterday.

Orteza, wife of director Carlitos Siguion-Reyna, said she joined the clamor for the immediate pullout of billboards because she has a daughter who is turning 15 years old soon. She said that her husband likewise opposed the brandy ads.

Meanwhile, Joey Reyes, director of the movie Live Show, also opposed the continued airplay of the brandy’s radio commercial and the display of billboards.

Reyes said the billboard of the brandy, even if it does not include a picture of a woman, is nevertheless offensive because when a person sees the ads he or she would instantly think of a girl or a boy.

Reyes pointed out that the effect is especially worse with the radio commercial because it does not have a tangible image and would merely leave it all to the imagination of the listener.

"Hindi sa nagmamalinis ako. I am not a saint pero hindi ako garapal," Reyes told The STAR in a telephone interview