Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim may have accepted electoral defeat, but he won’t take any guff from people using Dan Brown’s “Inferno” to insult him and his city.
During the flag ceremony on Monday, Lim told his detractors that the novel is a work of fiction. “Even though it was fictional, my political rivals still used it to hit at me and confuse the people of Manila,” Lim said in Filipino in an ABS-CBN News report.
Brown has been taking some heat for his unflattering portrayal of Manila as a place of crime and poverty in his latest book but Manila mayor-elect Joseph Estrada said what Brown wrote about Manila was true. He also said it was the sorry state of the capital city that prompted him to run for mayor.
Lim, who is wrapping up his term as mayor, said: “Maybe mudslinging is their way of life already. I don’t want to waste my time on this garbage.”
