PHILIPPINES
Inquirer
By: Boying Pimentel
@inquirerdotnet
The movie “Spotlight,” which just won this year’s Oscar for best picture, had a short run and did not get much attention in Manila, according to a friend.
That’s unfortunate.
“Spotlight” is a powerful, engrossing film that’s so relevant to Filipinos, on two levels.
The movie dramatizes how a team of Boston Globe reporters exposed the way the Catholic Church systematically covered up the way hundreds of priests abused children.
The investigative report had a global impact as the movie noted at the end. Before the final credits roll, the film lists the cities, towns and countries where priests were later exposed for abusing children. The Philippines is one of them.
This isn’t news.
When the Boston Globe broke the story in 2002, it quickly triggered investigations in other countries, including the Philippines. That year, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines acknowledged that hundreds of its priest may have been guilty of “sexual misconduct,” including child abuse, over the past 20 years.
The controversy just kept getting bigger.
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