Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Francis Tolentino is less than pleased with the depiction of Manila as the “Gates of Hell” in the latest best seller of American Author Dan Brown.
The book “Inferno” is the fourth in the series featuring symbologist Robert Langdon. The female protagonist in the novel, Sienna Brooks, joined a humanitarian mission to the Philippines but went through a traumatic ordeal – she was raped. Her accounts of Manila focused on the city’s seedy underbelly and exploited its poverty and sex trade.
Chairman Tolentino, for his part, could not bear to have the reputation of the country’s premier city sullied even in fictional writing. He personally wrote a letter to the best selling author and defended Metro Manila, saying that it is the center of Filipino spirit, faith, and hope.
Instead of the “Gates of Hell”, Tolentino defended that Manila is an entry to heaven, GMA News reported.
