The film is now set in Smokey Mountain during the time of the Arroyo administration. Alessandra de Rossi plays the journalist who learns about the cheating and becomes the whistleblower in exposing the anomaly. She’s very good but her role is actually a supporting one. We thought she’d be the rival of Gov. Vilma Santos in “Ekstra” as Cinemalaya best actress but she has minimal exposure compared to the two boys who are the central figures in the story: Dante (John Michael Bunapos, who has no previous acting experience but is very effective) and Ato (John Harley Hicana).
“Liars” is also the story of friendship between the two pre-teen boys. Dante was one of the three boys replaced in the team. He has an abusive father (Richard Quan) who hit him on the leg with a baseball bat after he defended his mom (Sue Prado) from being battered by his dad. Because of his injury, he wasn’t able to play for a while in their team.
An opportunistic sports official (Cris Villanueva) persuaded the team’s coach (Arnold Reyes) to replace three of his boys with more experienced baseball players imported from elsewhere, but they will make it appear that the imports really live in the community represented by the baseball team. Cris actually believes that they’re doing something good for the boys and also to bring honor to the country, especially after the team won the championship abroad.
When Alessandra exposes the truth, the lives of the boys are changed forever. What’s significant about the movie is that it also examines the aftermath of what happened ten years later. Alessandra went abroad after making the revelation and she admits her life in a foreign country ironically forced her to do stories that distort the truth. She has some regrets about what she did before because the lives of the poor boys who were marked for cheating went from bad to worse. They were stripped of their titles, the prize money they got was also taken back from them and they also lost the educational scholarship that was earlier granted to them by the government.
Scriptwriter Sennedy Que did research about the incident and he learned the lives of most of the boys were truly adversely affected by the cheating. In hindsight, Alessandra asks herself in the film if it had been better if she just remained silent about the truth. Maybe the boys would have had better chances in life.
The two lead characters are shown as grownups, Dante is played by Dax Alejandro and Ato, by Ping Medina. They, too, have their own misgivings about what happened. The film is generally well acted from the grownups Alessandra, Arnold, Cris, Sue and Richard to all the child stars involved in the film.
“Liars” will have its gala premiere on July 27, Saturday, 3:30 PM at the CCP Main Theatre. It will be sponsored by Sen. Koko Pimentel and Sen. Grace Poe, who both believe in Direk Gil’s advocacy since they are both victims of cheating, especially Grace whose dad FPJ was cheated from the presidency.
