Viva Refutes Cherie Gil’s Claim over ‘Second-Rate, Trying Hard Copycat’ Line

Cherie Gil and, right, Atty. Heather Annang of Viva Communications and Emmanuel 'Maning' Borlaza, director of the 1985 movie 'Bituing Walang Ningning'.

Image courtesy of www.interaksyon.com

Source: www.interaksyon.com

So who’s the second-rate, trying hard copycat?

According to actress Cherie Gil, it is both Viva Films and Resorts World Manila, the producers of “Bituing Walang Ningning: The Musical”, the stage adaptation of the famous film where the actress played the iconic role of Lavinia Arguelles.

Gil claimed that it was she who had originally come up with Lavinia’s classic put-down, “You’re nothing but a second-rate, trying hard copycat!” — one of the most memorable lines of dialogue in Philippine cinema.

Arguing that it is her intellectual property, the actress, through her lawyer, Lorna Kapunan, has sent the ongoing musical’s producers with a Cease and Desist Letter to stop its use in the show.

Viva Communications, Inc., however, begs to disagree. The company, through its counsel Heather Annang, spoke to InterAksyon and other media Tuesday and enumerated four reasons why there is no basis for Cherie’s copyright claim on that particular line.

“First of all, Viva owns the rights to the film and the story written by Nerissa Cabral. The company hired screenwriter Orlando Nadres to write the script, director Emmanuel Borlaza to direct the film and Sharon Cuneta, Cherie Gil and other actors and actresses to perform in the film. All the work done by these people in the film belongs to Viva including that line of Cherie,” Annang noted.

“Second, under the law, for anyone to be a co-author of a literary work, there has to be a manifest intent between the parties to create the work. In this case, the line was, at most, an ad-lib so there is no intent between the scriptwriter or the alleged author to do it together. So in this case, she cannot be a co-author.”

“Third, according to Direk Maning, he was the one who thought of the line. Since he is also a scriptwriter, Boss Vic del Rosario of Viva gave him a free hand to rehash and revise the script, so even before the shooting began, Direk Maning already revised the script and added that particular line.

“Finally, a copyright exists only for 25 years. For audiovisual works like this film, the reckoning point is the date of publish or print. The movie was released in 1985 so that’s already 30 years ago today so the copyright no longer exists. That’s the position of Viva.”

Annang said she has no idea what Gil intends to accomplish with her Cease and Desist Letter but said the actress may want to be recognized as a co-author of her contributed line in the film and, now, the musical.

Viva, however, has no intention of removing the line from the musical that opened last June 17 and will continue to run every Thursday to Sunday until July 18 at the Newport Performing Arts Theater in Resorts World Manila.

The “second-rate, trying hard copycat” line is considered a highlight and selling point of the lavish production, which has so far received mixed reviews.

For his part, the 80-year-old Borlaza said he still clearly remembers that it was him who came up with that famous line and not Cherie. The retired filmmaker said Boss Vic had been impressed with his work on “Dapat Ka Bang Mahalin” the year before that the latter wanted him to rehash “Bituing Walang Ningning” and add what he called some “crispy dialogues”.

Around the second week of the film’s shoot, however, Direk Maning suffered a heart attack and had to be rushed to the hospital. To avoid further delays, Borlaza withdrew from the project and recommended the late Leroy Salvador to finish the film although it was still credited to him when it was shown in theaters.

Salvador worked with Borlaza’s rehashed script including his notes, rewrites and, yes, that famous line.

“Pag hindi makinilyado yun, handwritten but it was there. Kilala naman ako sa mga dialogues ng mga pelikula ko. Until last year, Boss Vic continues to ask me to rewrite scripts directed by other people,” Borlaza added.

Borlaza said he was surprised with Gil’s legal action and if given the chance would like to talk to her about it.

“Tatanungin ko siya, ano ito? Sabihin nating pareho tayo ng paniniwala na ikaw ang nag-contribute nun at ako naman ang gumawa nung linyang yun, eh ilang beses nang ginamit sa mga commercial at propaganda yan, hindi naman ako naningil,” he pointed out.

In a text message to Interaksyon, Atty. Lorna Kapunan released this statement on behalf of Cherie Gil:

“It is best that the parties sit down to thresh out their respective claims in order to arrive at an equitable settlement.”