The 28th Metro Manila Film Festival was held in Manila, Philippines from December 25, 2002, to January 10, 2003. Two significant changes to the festival began with this edition: the festival became nationwide in scope, and its duration lasted two weeks instead of ten days. Regal Films' Mano Po received the most number of awards out of the nine entries with a total of twelve awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Eddie Garcia), Best Actress (Ara Mina), Best Supporting Actress (Kris Aquino), and Best Director (Joel Lamangan). The film is also the recipient of the Gatpuno Antonio J. Villegas Cultural Awards.

Entries

There are two batches of films in competition, the first batch was shown from December 25, while the second batch was shown on January 1, 2003.

Winners and nominees

Awards

Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.

Multiple awards

Ceremony information

During the "Gabi ng Parangal" held in PICC on December 27, there were some controversies:

Walking out of Dekada '70 cast

The cast of the film Dekada '70 walked out of the award ceremonies after Lualhati Bautista failed to win the Best Story and Best Screenplay awards. Even more controversial was the decision of the judges to name the first-timer Ara Mina the Best Actress for her role in Mano Po, beating multi-awarded Vilma Santos, who was in Dekada '70.

Inclusion of two films

The producers of the films Spirit Warriors: The Shortcut and Lastikman protested the non-inclusion of the two films as official entries, prompting the Metro Manila Film Festival committee to extend the annual event. Consequently, the committee extended the film screenings to seven days to accommodate two more films which did not make it to the entries.

Spirit Warriors: The Shortcut issues

Chito Roño, director of Second Best Picture Dekada '70, was curious as to why Spirit Warriors: The Shortcut was named the Third Best Picture award if the officials disqualified it as an official entry. In the same way, the production team of Ang Agimat: Anting-Anting ni Lolo was also appalled to the decision of the jurors to give the Best Visual Effects award to Spirit Warriors: The Shortcut if they only use "mono", beating their use of the more advanced "Dolby Digital System".

Box office gross

Final figures as of January 10, 2003.