No ‘pumping’ scenes, only vote padding — Erap

Deposed President Joseph Estrada found it ludicrous that a documentary film about his life, including the colorful days of his movie career and the "jueteng-scandal" that shortened his presidency, is being banned for public viewing by the government.

After more than four decades in the local film industry where he is a multi-awarded actor and movie producer, Estrada’s bio-flick Ang Mabuhay para sa Masa (To Live for the Masses), got a "triple X" rating from the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB).

"How can they give it an X rating? There was not even any pumping scene only vote padding. Those are the obscene scenes," he said.

Estrada called up The Star yesterday from his rest house detention in Tanay, Rizal after the questioned DVD underwent a second review by the MTRCB. Erlier, a petition was filed by the lawyers of the former president, led by ex-Immigration Commissioner Rufus Rodriguez.

Before he succumbed to a fatal heart attack yesterday, former Information Minister Greg Cendaña, a member of the MTRCB review panel, reassured Estrada’s lawyer they would take a second look at the DVD of the detained President.

In their appeal to the MTRCB, Rodriguez said the 57-minute DVD, produced by Public Asia Inc., is actually just a newsreel that narrated actual events in the life of Estrada, his family, his rise to stardom as a bit actor to action star. The film also showed how he first broke into politics and won an electoral protest to become the mayor of San Juan, where he served for 16 years until he was ousted from office during the 1986 people power revolution.

The DVD, as narrated by character actor Joonee Gamboa, went on to trace Estrada’s rise in the political arena when he ran and won as senator, then as vice president and eventually as the president of the Republic with the biggest margin of votes in history.

What got the DVD the triple X rating from the MTRCB was the second portion of the newsreel that detailed how Estrada’s ouster in Janauary 2001 was engineered by an alleged "conspiracy" of government, military and police officials, led by his then Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, with civil society leaders from business and religious groups, including the two former presidents of the country, Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos. It also highlighted the jueteng scandal and graft cases that rocked the Arroyo administration.

Estrada, a FAMAS Hall of Fame awardee for being Best Actor five times as well as winnning five Best Movie awards which he produced, said he could not make heads or tails why the MTRCB would ban his DVD when there were no explicit scenes that could warrant its censure from public viewing.

In her letter to the DVD producer, MTRCB chairman Ma.Consoliza Laguardia explained the ruling of the review body: "The scenes from his ouster, may undermine the faith and confidence of the people in their government and/or our duly constituted authority as the law provides."

Estrada, however, argued there was nothing in the DVD that undermines public morals or diminish faith or confidence of the people in the government.