Rappler.com-Aug 2
The Carmelite nuns have responded to the depiction of them playing mahjong in the trailer of upcoming film Maid in Malacañang. “The pictures depict the late Cory Aquino together with some religious sisters. The nuns are not wearing our brown religious habit. But if these pictures are portraying the events of February 1986, then the allusion to the Carmelite Order in Cebu is too obvious for anyone not to see,” Sister Mary Melanie Costillas, Prioress of the Carmelite Monaster, said in a statement published on Tuesday, August 2. Maid in Malacañang is directed by Darryl Yap and is a fictionalized telling of the last 72 hours of the Marcos family in Malacañang during the 1986 EDSA Revolution, based on the verbal stories of the Marcos family. “The attempt to distort history is reprehensible,” Costillas said. “Depicting the nuns as playing mahjong with Cory Aquino is malicious. It would suggest that while the fate of the country was in peril, we could afford to play leisurely games,” she added.
The nun said that no one from the production consulted them on what actually happened on the eve of the EDSA Revolution, which led to the overthrow of the 20-year authoritarian regime of Ferdinand Marcos, the father of current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. “The truth was that we were then praying, fasting, and making other forms of sacrifices for peace in this country and for the people’s choice to prevail,” Costillas said in a statement. The Carmelite Monastery was established in Mabolo, Cebu City, in 1949, where the cloistered nuns have become an important part of the Cebuano community. Read more at: https://www.rappler.com/entertainment/movies/cebu-carmelite-sisters-response-mahjong-scene-maid-in-malacanang/
