WIFE OF POLITICIAN CONCEPT Logline: The wife of a vice governor is haunted by horrific visions after she discovers her

husband is guilty of a horrendous massacre. Genres: Psychological Thriller; Supernatural Thriller; Suspense; Horror; Domestic Drama Keywords: Abortion; Marian Images; Catholic Church; Corruption; Politics Summary: Madsy Sandel Sycip (peg: Bea Alonzo) is married for four years to the young, brilliant local hero, Atty. Rem Sycip (peg: Richard Yap), the newly elected Vice Governor of the province of Santa Catalina. Everyone, from the media, to neighboring provinces, to the Church, and even Malacaan, has praised the politically willful tandem of the veteran Governor Benjamin Borlosan and his new idealistic vice governor. Their administration has made it clear that they are set to right the wrongs of the previous corrupt governor, and to restore Santa Catalina as the center of religious fervor and tourism, free from the mire of corruption, extra-judicial killings, and political unrest. But the private married life of Madsy and Rem is hardly idyllic. Though married for four years, they cannot make a baby, and Madsy is beginning to feel alone in their home as Rem is always preoccupied with matters of government, with his recurrent line Sorry, Madsy, but the province must go first. Because of this, the bouts of depression which used to haunt her during her teenage years have returned to ail Madsy. To boot, she suspects Rem of having an affair with another woman. Rem, though terribly busy with his political position, cannot help but notice signs of Madsys mental disorder

returning, mainly in the form of a psychotic fixation for the Marian image Rem returns one night to find their whole house full of them, their virginal faces looking on from the shadows; melted wax and lit candles strewn all over the floor. Ever since she was young, Madsy always turned to her fanatic zeal for prayer to ease her psycho-emotional pain. We do not know yet how Madsy developed this psychological disorder obviously, she keeps a dark secret in the recesses of her past. One day, a nigh crazed Madsy confronts Rem about his affairs, which Rem naturally denies. Madsy, to force Rem to admit to his unfaithfulness, attempts to hurt herself thankfully Rem is able to restrain her. Rem sends her to the hospital, pleading to the doctors to take care of his wife whom he dearly loves. For days Madsy recovers in a private mental rehabilitation unit in the mountains, as news of a horrific tragedy rocks the province: ten student activists, all known for being vocal opponents of the past governors administration, were found massacred in their university dorm. Gov. Borlosan immediately assigns Rem to lead the investigation, and announces to the media that all means shall be taken to punish those guilty of these horrendous crimes. Not long after the massacre, the past governor is already imprisoned, and his henchmen with him. The case is resolved, the aggrieved parties appeased, and Rem is praised for his expeditious handling of the case. Madsy, on the other hand, is fresh from recuperation, still physically fragile and emotionally vulnerable. One drizzly afternoon, Madsy in her rehab room hears a knock on the door. She opens it expecting her husband or a visitor, but nobody is outside. Instead, someone leaves a large sealed Manila envelope on the floor. She picks this up and peruses its shocking contents transcripts of a meeting, in full, meticulous detail, between her husband, the governor, the local archbishop, and the military provincial commander, discussing about the massacre of the student activists. The transcript shows that the horrendous murder was a plan devised by Rem to stop the student activists from exposing the electoral fraud and corruption committed by the current provincial administration with the cooperation of the Archbishop.

Madsy is deeply disturbed. She demands to speak to her husband. She runs out of her room and barges into the office of the rehab proprietors who are nuns. The nuns and nurses try to restrain her, but she fights back until she sees that the nuns faces get distorted into grotesque, demonic forms, and she collapses. When she awakens, she finds that shes back at home, beside her husband. She finally confronts him about the transcript. Rem is obviously disturbed by Madsys claims, and quite angrily this time demands her proof. Madsy produces the envelope full of documents, and hands it over to Rem but Rem is nonplussed, and cries despairingly: REM (In tears) Madsmahalplease, I dont know what to do anymore MADSY What the hell are you talking about, Rem!? What you have to do is to explain to me, your wife, how someone new as your are sa putang inang politikang yan, can do something as inhuman as this!? Explain yourself, Rem! For the sake of our marriage for the sake of my sanity putang ina, Rem! Explain! REM (Violently grabs Madsy by the shoulders) EXPLAIN WHAT, MADS!? WHAT!?

Rem exits the room, throwing the documents all over the floor. Madsy picks them up, and sees that suddenly they have all become blank, empty pages. Madsy begins to question her own sanity, and proceeds to burn the empty pages. But during one rainy day, she sees a vision of a flash flood entering her home and drowning her and all the Marian images. She finds as she drowns deeper and deeper in the flood that the corpses of the ten student activists, still bleeding, drown with her. When she awakens, Madsy is convinced that her husband is indeed implicated in the massacre, and proceeds to investigate the matter quietly on her own. Meanwhile, we see that Rem himself is starting to change he now often goes drinking with the governor, sits quietly at home, brooding, and sometimes even whispering to himself. The condition of his wife obviously begins to take its toll on him.

Madsy meets the chaplain of the university, Fr. Nanding (peg: Joel Torre), an inspiring spiritual leader to the students of the university. Both Fr. Nanding, confessor of the late student activists, and Madsy suspect the governor to have had a hand in the massacre. Fr. Nanding helps Madsy investigate. They gain access to the hidden files of the leader of the student activists, stowed away in an old abandoned car where they discover the same transcripts Madsy saw earlier in the story. They are both committed to exposing the sins of this new administration. Madsy returns to her house to serve her husband dinner. In a tense scene, they both quietly eat their dinner, perfunctorily asking how each others afternoons were spent. Suddenly, Rem drops a bomb: he wants an annulment, citing as reason the fact that he cannot handle her psychological complications, and that she cannot bear him a child. They fight. Madsy accuses him once more of being complicit to the massacres, and requests him to leave the life of politics, blaming it for their failing marriage. In the heat of rage and passion, they make love while they are at it, Madsy is struck with a disturbing vision of the Marian images all turning their heads towards the two of them while in coitus. Suddenly, she is alone naked, her umbilical cord uncoiled all over the floor, at the end of which is a baby. She picks this up it is a beautiful baby boy. She brings the baby out of the house and into the street, where the whole town is gathered they raise her up, like a Madonna and Child in a procession, as she breastfeeds her baby boy. Suddenly, she sees a Crone walking towards her, past the thick throng of her devotees, holding a bloodied clamp. Madsy is frightened at the sight of the Crone, and when she looks at the baby in her arms, it has turned into a dead fetus Rem slaps her in the face she comes to again, and they are both naked, in the middle of the sexual act. But Rem complains that she was screaming her behavior is starting to scare him. Rem leaves in anger. Madsy runs to Fr. Nanding. She recounts to him her vision, and she confesses that before she met Rem, when she was just a teenager, she had an abortion, which she believes is the prime reason why she

cannot bear Rem a child. Fr. Nanding absolves her despite the fact that only a bishop can do that, and proceeds to tell her that he has contacted his friends who work at Radio Veritas regarding the transcript. Fr. Nanding asks her if she is really prepared to let her beloved husband be exposed as a murderer. She says yes. In a moment of awkward, but palpable intimacy, she and Fr. Nanding kiss, but momentarily. She leaves immediately. The next day, she wakes up alone in her room. She turns on her laptop and sees an email linking her to a video, where she sees Fr. Nanding being immolated to death while being tied to a chair. She shuts close her laptop and runs downstairs in a panic, and to her surprise, she sees her house clear of all the Marian images, and her husband, peacefully cooking breakfast. He runs to her and embraces her we see perhaps a picture of how they were as a newly married couple. He apologizes for ever bringing up annulment, explains how her Marian devotion maybe excessive and that they should start again, and also shows her the headline news: DATING GOV NG STA. CATALINA, UMAMIN SA UNIV DORM MASSACRE. He sits her down to eat, but she is not convinced she confronts him about Fr. Nanding. Rem once again is confused; she presses on about the massacre and how Rem gave his consent to have those students who supported him in his campaign killed. She vows once and for all to publicly proclaim what she knows she runs to her room, gets her laptop, and rushes to her car a chase scene between husband and wife in their big garden where all the Marian images are, eerily all posed like columns in the grey-green front porch she finally manages to drive away, Rem unsuccessfully chasing her. She drives to the university. She runs to the chaplains office, shouting that she knows who killed Fr. Nanding and the student activists. An old nun, a teacher of hers long ago, calms her and brings her to a private room. The Nun explains to her that Fr. Nanding has died a long time ago. He killed himself after being accused of sexually molesting young teenage girls in the university. This awakens in Madsy a stream of flashbacks and suppressed memories of her as a freshman high schoolgirl being sexually attracted to the priest she gives her virginity to the priest the priest anxiously accompanies her to have

an abortion we see the Crone performing her abortion the priest is exposed as a statutory rapist the priest is reported to have died from hanging himself in the belfry tower. Madsy remembers all these. She drives back to her house. There, she sees her husband on the breakfast table, a very touching scene: Rem is pretending to talk to her and his imaginary son; pretending to have a normal family life. He then weeps. She comes up to him they look at each other she embraces him and asks for his forgiveness. She asks him to call for an ambulance she wants to be institutionalized. She goes to her room and lies down on the bed. She sees the vision of a dove hovering over her, and a golden droplet landing on her forehead, and a baby is on top of her belly, a cherub, a gift from God. She awakens, peace clearly blessing her countenance. She is almost Marian, virginal. She turns to the other side of the bed we see Rem above her, weeping, holding up a pillow near her face REM Forgive me, Madsy, this must go first.

End.