Cherie Gil vs Viva: From copycat to copyright

Cherie Gil FILE PHOTO

Whose line is it anyway?

A dispute over who originated the iconic words, “You’re nothing but a second-rate, trying hard copycat”—from the 1985 film “Bituing Walang Ningning”—recently arose after the actress who popularized the line requested that it be discontinued from being used in the movie’s ongoing stage adaptation, saying that it’s her intellectual property.

READ: Cherie Gil wants musical to stop using her iconic line

On Friday, Viva Entertainment, which owns the rights to the film, reportedly received a cease and desist letter from Cherie Gil, through lawyer Lorna Kapunan, in which the seasoned thespian claimed that she was “the one who came up with the words, thus making her a co-author of the script.”

“On that basis, Gil is asking Viva to stop using that particular line in the musical,” lawyer Heather Annang, the entertainment outfit’s external counsel, told the Inquirer in a phone interview on Tuesday.

Gil, who played Lavinia Arguelles, uttered the line to her fan-turned-fierce rival Dorina Pineda (Sharon Cuneta) in the much-mimicked scene that had the former splashing water to her neophyte show-biz nemesis.

However, Viva’s camp insisted that it was movie director, Emmanuel H. Borlaza, who incorporated the line into the script, which was originally written by Orlando Nadres. “It was already revised by the director when it was given to Gil; all she had to do was act it out,” she said.

The play “Bituing Walang Ningning: The Musical,” which runs at Resorts World Manila’s Newport Performing Arts Theater, is mounted by Viva together with Full House Theater Company. It stars Monica Cuenco as Dorina and Cris Villonco as Lavinia.

“The position of Viva is that Gil’s claim has no grounds, so the line will still be used,” Annang said.

Citing the Intellectual Property Code, Annang said that the director’s and actors’ outputs—including the utterances made by Gil and Cuneta—in the course of their employment, belong to Viva. “That’s why Viva has the right to go ahead and stage the musical,” she pointed out.

On Gil’s claim that she’s a co-author of the script because the said line was her own idea, Annang said that, even if it were true, a mere modification to the script doesn’t give her that right.

“She was saying that the line wasn’t in the script. But under the law, for you to become a co-author, there has to be a deliberate intent among the people involved to write and produce something,” Annang said. “Assuming that, for the sake of argument, Gil did add the line, that still doesn’t make her a co-author.”

Annang also said that Viva is open to a dialogue with Gil’s camp.

Meanwhile, Borlaza said that he indeed revised Nadres’ script upon the request of Viva’s top honcho Vic del Rosario. “He loved my crisp dialogues, so he asked me to rehash the script and add some. So I rushed it. I read it from the first page and even changed the ending,” the 80-year-old director recalled.

Although he didn’t personally direct the memorable scene, as he suffered a heart attack at that time, the filmmaker said that the line was already in the revised script that was handed over to his substitute, Leroy Salvador.

Borlaza described Gil and Cuneta as professional actresses. “They don’t complain about the lines of dialogue. No, chatting, no goofing around—they had the script in hand even when being dressed by the production designers,” he related, adding that he hopes to see Gil one of these days.

“I hope our paths cross so we can catch up. We’re friends and I hope we can clear things up,” Borlaza said.

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