In March last year, I informed my readers that our film commissioner had wooed Netflix to produce in Malta and about a Malta-based heist, the sixth season of the popular series Money Heist.

He proposed a creative twist to the series. It should not be about a professor but about an invictus. It should not be about a clique of criminals stealing some of Spain’s most important financial institutions. It should be about a clique of people in power stealing the hospitals of the Maltese people and lining their (not the people’s) pockets with dirty money.

Netflix agreed and the work on the series is now in an advanced stage.

But after the publication of the process verbal of the magisterial inquiry into the Vitals/Steward heist, our film commissioner produced a trump card.  Since there is a tsunami of proofs that the Maltese were the victims of a multi-million-euro heist, the series could now take the form of a docudrama instead of a work of fiction.

Netflix’s reaction is positive. The sub-title will be: ‘Truth is crueller than fiction’.

What can be crueller that siphoning off into one’s pocket money earmarked for the cure of children suffering from cancer? What can be viler than changing hospitals into five-star pigeon coops than into five-star meccas of health?

While the film commissioner is celebrating this win while drinking Chateaubriand champagne and muckbanging Beluga caviar – paid by our taxes – the chairperson of Malta’s arts council is greener than green with envy. It could not be that the film commissioner leaves his mark on the international arts scene while the fame of the chair of the arts council does not even traverse from Malta to Gozo.

A council meeting was hastily called to look for a scandal that they could turn into a show. Scandals they mentioned a plenty but one that could catch people’s attention like the hospitals heist was not an easy find. Hours of debates got the members nowhere, until the oldest member rose up to speak. 

“Instead of building on the popular Netflix series Money Heist, let’s piggy-back – oops, worst choice of words – on the popular musical The Phantom of the Opera,” he said.

Blank faces.

“We produce”, he said “instead, The Opera of the Phantoms.”

More blank faces.

The consultant explained.

“First, we had heard about the phantom job of Melvin Theuma.  People were shocked. That would be the first phantom of our musical. Then, there was the phantom job of Rosianne Cutajar of kulħadd jitħanżer fame. Gender balance is guaranteed. If we want numbers, then we introduce the Island of the Phantom Jobs.”

Remember the pope’s message to the Maltese: ‘May your commitment to eliminate illegality and corruption be strong’- Fr Joe Borg

“Where is this,” the chair asked sarcastically.

“Gozo,” answered the consultant.

He explained that it is documented that many Gozitans were given a government job but they only work for an hour or two before whizzing off to their proper full-time job in the private sector.

“Private industry had to change its working hours to accommodate these thieves. A top official of the Chamber of SMEs and the bishop of Gozo condemned this practice but to no avail. Catholic Gozo can take such thievery in its stride.”

A top civil servant sniggered.

“Those you mentioned are the honest thieves. There are several in Gozo who get paid for a government job but don’t even know where they have to report to.”

The consultant did not want anyone to take the wind out of his sails. He ignored the comment adding that the Island of Phantom Jobs could be balanced by the Island of Phantom Pensioners.

Hundreds of persons were awarded a phantom disability pension in return for their vote, he said. Hundreds feigned, and the medical board abusively approved, that totally healthy people had cancers, multiple slip discs and diseases of the heart, kidneys, lungs and colon. A minister’s driver claimed that he could not drive. A fake amputee walked in front of the medical board with the alacrity of a ballet dancer, and so on and so forth. In all cases, the members of the medical board played the role of the Three Monkeys.

The grand finale proposed by the consultant will be the mass meeting of the happy people of the Island of the Phantom Jobs fraternalising with the people of the Island of the Phantom Pensions. They will give a hero’s welcome to those who pillaged the country for the good of the few while chanting the musical’s theme song: Give us crumbs.

The chair, happy tears welling in his eyes, hugged the consultant. General clapping and the shouts of “Irriduh, Irriduh” filled the room.

Only one person stood up to protest.

“What you mention is not cause for celebration but cause for shame. Café Premiere, Electrogas, Quad Central, Montenegro wind farms, the rape of the institutions and the politicisation of PBS preceded and accompanied the phantom jobs and the phantom pensions. Corruption, corruption everywhere.”

The members of the arts council were monetarily shocked.

“Corruption is like a ravenous beast. Corruption is a form of blasphemy, living as if there is no God, but only material goods.”

Boo, boo, shouted the council members. He was not deterred.

“Remember the pope’s message to the Maltese: ‘May your commitment to eliminate illegality and corruption be strong, like the north wind that sweeps the coasts of this country.’ What you celebrate is the tragedy of the phantoms, not the opera of the phantoms.”

“You are the enemy of the people,” the council members shouted in unison. “Throwing crumbs at the masses works wonders. The people will forget. The people will absolve. You will be banished.”

The story continues.

You have the duty to stop the insidiousness of corruption from materialising. A happy ending is possible but it depends on you too.