The team behind Ang Batang Quiapo paid a courtesy visit on Tuesday to the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) officials. This visit came in response to the concerns raised by BuCor regarding numerous scenes depicted in the series, which they felt raised significant issues for the agency’s officials and employees.
During the meeting, ABS CBN’s chief operating officer, Cory Vidanes, alongside Mark Lapid and Coco Martin, expressed their apologies to BuCor officials. They reassured them that their intention was never to tarnish the reputation of BuCor and its personnel.
Lapid respectfully requested BuCor officials to grant them until December to make the necessary adjustments in the series.
Martin, for his part, told BuCor officials (in the vernacular), “That’s why we’re here today to personally apologize, but we have no intention to harm or hurt. Please don’t worry, as we’re balancing everything.”
“I just hope that, in the end, as always, good will triumph over evil. I look forward to seeing those characters who are playing villains in your series exposed, prosecuted, or redeem themselves to show the public that crime does not pay, and the long arm of the law will catch up with those who disregard it,” said Director General Gregorio Pio Catapang, Jr.
Catapang said that the meeting were requested by executives and cast of Ang Batang Quiapo after the Bucor through Deputy Director General for Administration, Atty. Al Perreras wrote them a letter that he received insistent clamor from Bucor officials and employees themselves who had seen the program and called their attention on the misleading concepts about the bureau as portrayed in said tv series and requested the people behind the show to immediately refrain from depicting scenes that malign the reputation of the agency and its employees.
While the show makes use of a different agency appellation, it cannot be helped but notice that the same makes a clear and undeniable reference to the National Penitentiary, which this Bureau represents and hence, may affect or influence the perceptions of the viewers about our agency, Perreras said.