Lawyer Ferdie Topacio is the producer of Mamasapano: Now It Can Be Told, one of the eight entries to the 2022 Metro Manila Film Festival which opens today, 25 December in cinemas.

Daily Tribune (DT): Why did you produce the movie?

Ferdie Topacio (FT): I produced Mamasapano to fulfill my promise to the grieving parents of the SAF 44, for whom I tried to get justice as their lawyer, after we were thwarted at every turn by technicalities and the inherent limitations of legal procedures. I told them that if justice is long in coming from the courts, perhaps at least in the bar of public opinion, we can attain some measure of it.

Hence, the movie, which is based on only three reliable sources: The report of the Senate Public Order Committee chaired by Sen. Grace Poe; the report of the Philippine National Police Board of Inquiry chaired by then Gen. Benjie Magalong; and interviews with persons who have factual knowledge of events before, during and/or after the massacre.

DT: The movie has the tag line Now It Can Be Told. Are there specific details the public still don't know yet about Mamasapano?

FT: In general terms, we included the tag line to impress upon viewers that, seven years or so after the sordid incident, passions have sufficiently cooled in order to afford a more dispassionate and objective assessment of what went wrong in Mamasapano that fateful day on 25 January 2015, and who were responsible for the deaths of 44 of our elite police officers. But in particular, we believe the full story of the massacre could not have been possible whilst Aquino was still president, since key witnesses who have been less than forthcoming before the Senate and PNP hearings were understandably reluctant to tell the whole truth.