In a 20-page decision on Monday (27 January) Presiding Judge Liezel Aquiatan of the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 205 ordered the removal of the teaser for Darryl Yap’s film, The Rapists of Pepsi Paloma, which mention actor-TV host-producer Vic Sotto’s as the rapist of the late 1980s sexy star Pepsi Paloma.
“Respondent Darryl Ray Spyke B. Yap and any person or entity acting on his behalf, including the production team of VinCentiments, are ordered to delete, take down, and remove the 26-second teaser video from online platforms, social media, or any other medium for having misused the collected data/information by presenting a conversation between two deceased individuals, which cannot be verified as having actually occurred,” the order stated.
Following the Muntinlupa court’s order, Yap’s lawyer, Raymond Fortun, said in a text message to print media that Yap will not appeal the decision as it still allowed the director-screenwriter to release the movie in theaters.
Yap earlier announced that the movie is scheduled to open in cinemas nationwide on 5 February.
However, as of this writing, Yap has not announced the film’s approval and rating by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) headed by Ciara Sotto-Antonio, a niece of Vic Sotto as her father is former senator Tito Sotto. We do not think that the Muntinlupa court’s statement that the film is “allowed to be released” means it does not have to be approved and classified by the MTRCB.
The film’s cast members seem hardly enthusiastic about the movie. None of them has posted grandly about their participation in The Rapists of Pepsi Paloma.
Gina Alajar, who plays the late actress Charito Solis in the film, has two Instagram (IG) accounts: one private, the other public. We opened the latter and found out that the actress has never posted anything about it.
Yap, in a previous post in his VinCentiments Facebook (FB) account, is all-praise for the late actress whose character in the film seems to have been made a major one by Yap, so we wanted to find out what Alajar says about it. The director-scriptwriter (and allegedly the film’s sole producer) recently wrote on his FB that everyone needs a Charito Solis in their lives “kailangan ng isang Charito Solis sa ating buhay)."
According to Yap, Solis had been quietly close to Paloma and it was she (Solis) who redeemed Paloma’s body from the morgue of a hospital after the teen actress took her life, put it up on a funeral parlor, so her loved ones and fans can pay her their last respect.
Showbiz press in the 80s has no reports about a close friendship between Solis and Paloma. The nymphet actress was not known to be very close to anyone — not even to her manager.
Character actor Mon Confiado portrays the only known major personality in Paloma’s career, her manager Rey de la Cruz, the out-and-out gay optometrist. Confiado has so far posted on his IG account one photo of him as De la Cruz. Confiado seems to have deliberately chosen a photo of his character in which he hardly looks gay.
Shamaine Buencamino portrays Paloma’s mother, Lydia Dueñas Whitley (formerly Smith, Paloma’s abandoning father in Olongapo City, the hometown of both Paloma and Yap). Buencamino has several IG accounts but she doesn’t mention her appearance in Yap’s film at all — even as Yap seems to have made the character a major one, too. After all, the mother, who still lives in Olongapo with a brother of Paloma, seems to be Yap’s main resource person on the (brief) life of the nymphet skin-flick star. Yap was born in 1987; Paloma died in 1985. The alleged rape occurred in 1982.
Former bold actress Rosanna Roces portrays the 1970s sexy actress Divina Valencia in Yap’s film. Both Roces and Valencia have nothing on their respective social media accounts about The Rapists of Pepsi Paloma. It is Yap who had a mysterious posting on VinCentiments about the two actresses some moons ago.
Here it is: “The Rosanna Roces as The Divina Valencia. An Icon for an Icon. Find out what she did that shook the very core of Pepsi Paloma.”
Valencia had an incident not with Paloma but with De la Cruz. In an episode of the very short-lived ABS-CBN talk show Humor, Facts, and Rumor in the 90s, Valencia hit De la Cruz on camera with a microphone and called him names. Remember, Paloma died in 1985.
By the way, in Yap’s posting of the film’s second teaser, he noted that only the film’s international release will be titled The Rapists of Pepsi Paloma. In the Philippines, the film’s title will simply be Pepsi Paloma. The SM nationwide theater chain reportedly does not book films with indelicate title. However, there are no reports that SM cinemas long for the Yap film.
Yes, the director-scriptwriter-producer even expects his film to be released internationally–which may be possible even without MTRCB approval. Films shown in the streaming platforms also don’t need MTRCB blessing.
So, let’s wait and see where the controversial film will fly high or flap (flop?!) low.