Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Erik Matti did not mince words when he blasted Toni Gonzaga for her “unbothered” stance as she figured in a controversial hosting stint at Bongbong Marcos’ and Sara Duterte’s campaign kickoff this week.
Gonzaga was the main host at the Marcos-Duterte proclamation rally, dubbed as the “UniTeam,” where she also introduced the pair’s senatorial slate — among them House Deputy Speaker Rodante Marcoleta who pushed for the denial of ABS-CBN’s license renewal, Gonzaga’s home network and the biggest broadcaster in the Philippines.
ABS-CBN’s closure after their 25-year franchise was rejected at the House of Representatives cost the jobs of some 11,000 employees.
Read: House rejects ABS-CBN’s bid for a fresh franchise
The director, whose political mini-series On the Job: The Missing 8 opened to critical acclaim at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, posted a screenshot of Gonzaga’s Instagram story where the actress-host shared a fan’s post praising her as an “unbothered queen” despite the social media vitriol.
“Everyone has a right to their own political stances,” Matti began his strongly worded post. “But when Hitler runs for office after slaughtering millions of Jews and you still support his bid, the least you can do is acknowledge all the blood he has spilled and with integrity, stick to your own crazy misplaced loyalty in private or in silence.”
The director further drew comparisons between Ferdinand Marcos, Bongbong’s father who declared 14 years of martial law in the Philippines, and the Holocaust mastermind.
“The atrocities of Hitler was a history that has been written that actually happened and that no one can refute.”
“In the same way the plunder and the horrors of the Marcos regime to our country the Philippines, that no one has claimed responsibility until now with the players still roaming around free, moneyed and powerful, is irrefutable and a historical fact that cannot be forgotten and rewritten.”
Matti added that both victims of the Holocaust and Martial Law were more than just mere statistics, and were real people who existed and suffered the horrors of both regimes.
“The victims of both the Holocaust and our Martial Law were all real people with names, families and siblings that walked and talked the earth then and even survived by descendants until now. No one can ever say they didn’t exist.”
The director went on to blast Gonzaga for being “arrogant and obnoxious” in brushing off her online critics and embracing the “unbothered queen” tag.
“I cannot fathom (that) anyone, who has access to the same historical facts from our books and Youtube like everyone else, can still have the gall to hold their head so high to the point of being so arrogant and obnoxious to brush away critics and dissenters even acknowledging and flaunting it with such an insensitive hashtag. That is just incomprehensible.”
Matti also alluded to Gonzaga’s personal ties to Bongbong — who served as godfather at her wedding to fellow film director Paul Soriano. Soriano also directed Bongbong’s most recent campaign ads.
Read: The internet is fuming at Toni Gonzaga’s interview with Bongbong Marcos
“To give your support to any political candidate whether or not out of affinity, blood or loyalty is between you and your conscience. You can do whatever you want with your celebrity power and God’s guidance because this is a free world, after all. But to be brazen, arrogant and snooty makes all of it despicable, disgusting and really crude.”
The On the Job director further questioned their “boldness” to be on the side of history that has been “irrefutably proven” to have contributed to the deep-seated corruption within Philippine politics.
“What makes you people so emboldened, seeming almost like untouchables, to never have the decency to acknowledge with humble bowed heads and with Almighty God as your witness, that you are on the side of what history had unmistakably and irrefutably proven to have been part of the plunder and corruption of the Philippines then and now.”
“Impunity and apathy run so deep in all of us,” Matti ended his post.
A day after Gonzaga appeared at the Marcos-Duterte proclamation rally, the actress-host announced that she was leaving Pinoy Big Brother, the ABS-CBN hit reality show that she had hosted for 16 years since its premiere in 2006.
Meanwhile, Matti is known for his outspoken social media views as well as his politically laced films, many of them crime thrillers such as On the Job, BuyBust, and On the Job: The Missing 8 that have been screened in film festivals worldwide.
