The Beki Chronicles: Producer of Popular Gay Soap Opera Assures Philippine Bishops TV Show Made With Utmost Prudence, Good Taste (VIDEOS)
A day after Philippine bishops asked the producers of the popular gay soap opera, My Husband's Lover, to be more careful in their provocative material, the station assured them that the sensitive real-life situations they present is produced with utmost prudence and in good taste.
Besides the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) calling the attention of GMA-7, the producer, and the show trouncing competition, a satire press release on alleged changes in the programme surfaced on Wednesday, indicating how popular the pioneering show has become in just more than two weeks of airing.
GMA also cited in a statement released the same day that the show has been given by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board a Strong Parental Guidance rating which the station will comply with.
"We would like to thank all the viewers of My Husband's Lover for supporting our program not just by watching it but via intelligent discussions and comments in all forms of media," GMA said.
Every time the programme starts to air at 9:30 p.m., Twitter is alive with posts of followers of the show who say they are watching My Husband's Lover to those who commend the beautiful plot and downright anger at the CBCP for seemingly speaking against the bekiserye.
One post from the Web site So What's New was an obvious fake press release that said GMA decided to follow the advice of the bishops and changed the show's title to My Father's Lover.
Quoting a Katherine Galvez, the soap opera's executive producer said that My Father's Lover will be the first church-themed series on Philippine TV. It will star the same actors but with a twist.
Eric, the architect played by Dennis Trillo, will be an older priest named Fr Eric Del Gundo who was the first sex experience of Vincent, played by Tom Rodriguez, when he was an altar boy.
The alleged new storyline is a swipe at the sex abuse scandals faced by the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, the fake press release said the revamped soap opera will tackle sensitive but relevant issues such as child molestation, ivory smuggling, deception, homophobia, church discrimination and corruption within the Catholic church.
"We hope that this show, depicting the morally correct lives of the Catholic church, would be enough to appease the righteous and non-hypocritical hierarch that is the CBCP," the article said.
It added the revamped show has a new rating from the MTRCB from the old SPG to PG which means Parochial Guidance.
The real MTRCB said it would apply proper procedure if it receives complaints about My Husband's Lover, saying it would hear also the side of the show's producer.