CIRIACO, Paola 05 March 2019

BSBA – Marketing Management

Reaction Paper: Spotlight (2015)

Spotlight is a 2015 film based on a true story of how

“Spotlight”, the team of investigative journalists in the Boston

Globe, uncovered an enormous scandal of child molestation and

sex abuse in the Boston area by numerous Roman Catholic priests

and how the local Catholic Archdiocese covered these cases up.

Section 6 of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines declares:

“The separation of Church and State shall be inviolable” and “no

law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or

prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” We are often told that

we should not mix religion and politics, because when religion

is used for political purposes, it empties the true meaning of

faith and it becomes just another method of acquiring power. The

separation of church and state is probably one of the least

understood principle. Most often than not, people think it

simply means that the church should not interfere with the

affairs of the government, just as how the government should not

also interfere with the affairs of the church. The separation of

church and state goes far beyond that way of thinking. It

implies that the government should remain religiously neutral,

which means that the government should not show any preference

to a certain religion and that the government should not take

away an individual’s ability to exercise religion. On the same

sense, the church can also be involved with the affairs of the

government; not controlling, but being involved. It is the

freedom of every citizen to express their opinions and be

involved in politics because politics is the activity of people

and it affects everyone. The movie Spotlight is a powerful,

well-crafted film that was able to portray a sensitive topic

that not many of us talk about. We all know the power that the

church holds, especially in a conservative country like the

Philippines, making these allegations against the church a

difficult topic to discuss about. I liked how the film gave hope

to the victims that there is still justice, no matter how long

it might take. The team of investigative journalists was able to

uncover the truth about the church and collect evidences that

lead to the exposé of the crimes that the people from the church

committed. The film showed that no one is exempted from the law,

not even the church. Lastly, Spotlight showed me that while the

truth may be hard to digest it is worth knowing. Sometimes it’s

the harshness of the truth that makes it hard to accept it, we

don’t understand how it can be true but once we discover the

truth, even though it pains, it will liberate us from the lie

we’ve been living all along.