Team DailyPedia
Christopher Ad Castillo, son of legendary Filipino film maker Celso Ad Castillo, posted a public apology last March 4, 2016 after his threatening messages to another director went viral on social media.
Petersen Vargas, Best Director at the 2015 Cinemalaya Film Festival, posted screengrabs of Castillo’s status and messages on his Facebook account last March 3, 2016. In the posts, Castillo was threatening Vargas for the latter’s criticism of his movie.
Vargas said that he was trying to be patient with Castillo’s “threats.” However, he had to reveal what was going on because Castillo’s messages had become both alarming and disturbing and he had some concerns with his safety. Vargas’s post immediately went viral and was shared over 400 times on Facebook, gaining 1,000 reactions which were mostly negative.
Here is what Vargas wrote:
“PLEASE READ: I’ve been trying to be patient with this guy and has been ignoring his constant harassing just because I had a hate-tweet about his film WAY BACK IN 2014. I just recently discovered that he’s been trying to harass everyone who said some pretty bad things about his film, also back in 2014, even up to this day in 2016.
“Now I don’t know about you, but if you ever had someone randomly publicly try to look for you, announce that finally he now knows where you live, urge you to meet them just to see ‘how tough you are,’ – sounds like a serious threat to me. I MEAN, ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO PICK ON SOMEONE WHO JUST SPOKE WHAT’S ON THEIR MIND AND ASK THEM TO GIVE TIME & EFFORT JUST TO SAY WHATEVER THEY PREVIOUSLY ALREADY STATED (in Twitter, in this case) TO THEIR FACE? WHAT’S THE POINT? WILL I SEE THE FILM DIFFERENTLY? NO, I GUESS NOT. IT’S MY OPINION. WHEN DID GIVING AN OPINION, NO MATTER HOW IT MEANT, BECAME SUCH A WRONG THING.
“I’m extremely disturbed by this man’s behavior and am posting this publicly just in case some random guy just attacks me out of nowhere because I HAD TO SAY WHAT WAS IN MY HEAD IN MY OWN TWITTER ACCOUNT – which is how it’s supposed to be, right? So yeah. I don’t know what to do with this, but I’ve just had enough, and I need to let it out. Thanks for reading.
“PS: Oh, and if there is anything I can do to keep this man away from me, in whatever way, please let me know. I am asking for serious advice because I think this is something that’s both alarming and disturbing to the point that I had to publicly post this incident. Thanks in advance.”
Vargas also posted screengrabs of his conversations with Castillo with the latter telling them to meet.
On March 1, 2016, Castillo posted a status on Facebook stating that he will be in Manila and that he was looking for Vargas. “Petersen Vargas I’ll be in Manila soon and I’ll be looking for you. And someone tell Philbert Dy I’m looking for him too. Eye for an eye,” said Castillo in his post.
Castillo’s posts and messages were believed to have stemmed from Vargas’s hate-tweet on Castillo’s 2014 film, In Darkness We Live.
Interestingly, on March 4, 2016, Castillo posted a public apology on his Facebook account, stating that he overreacted and that he is man enough to admit his mistake.
Castillo’s apology was shared by Vargas on his Facebook and Twitter accounts stating that Castillo and his partner has already reached out to him personally and that the latter is sincerely regretting his previous actions.
Castillo’s post has been taken down from Facebook as of this writing.
