We allowed it

Are We There Yet?

By Bong Austero

Let’s make no bones about this: The documentary Give Up Tomorrow, which everyone has been raving about, was created with a distinct purpose – is to expose what the filmmakers believe was an injustice.  More specifically, the filmmakers want the film to generate public support that would hopefully lead to a review of the case.  One of the filmmakers is related by blood to the subject of the film.   The Web site of the film is upfront about its advocacy, which is to free Francisco Paco Larrañaga, convicted of raping and killing the Chiong sisters Marijoy and Jacqueline.

All these, however, should not distract us from the stark naked truth that leaps out of the screen, which is that a major injustice has been done in this country.  There is just no way for any viewer to come out of the screening with a contrary belief – the facts pretty much speak for themselves, the inescapable conclusion is arrived at organically.

It is nevertheless important to highlight the background information because there really are many people in this country who judge cases, or other people, mainly by association, gut feel, and by perception.  I know quite a number of people who have refused to watch the film because they see it as propaganda.  Many of those who dismissed the testimony of Larrañaga’s teachers and classmates, all 35 or so of them who said the suspect was in Manila at the time of the murders, did so believing that those associated with Larrañaga could only be part of a cover-up strategy.  Many of us do tend to see the worse in others and think that most people would lie for a loved one, for a friend, or for money.

In fact, the whole travesty that is the subject of the film – the Kafkaesque train of events – came to pass largely because of the stereotype about evil rich kids and the resulting condemnation over how the rich in this country supposedly get away with almost anything, including committing grisly crimes, because of their political connections.  This melodramatic drivel is the stuff of local soap operas and movies and built the iconic status of the likes of deposed President Joseph Estrada and the late Fernando Poe Jr.  This was the same mob mentality that convicted Hubert Webb for the Vizconde murders, a conviction which was thankfully eventually reversed.  And it is the same mentality that we’re seeing in the rush to crucify Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her allies.

I was in Cebu the week the Chiong murders happened almost two decades ago.   I remember how the murders electrified the city – for a few days every morning, the city would practically come to a halt as newscasters and pundits delivered the latest in the developing saga of the poor versus the rich.  The victims and their families were working class while the suspects were all scions of the most powerful clans in the city (Larrañaga is a great grandson of a Philippine president). Those who expressed reservations on the guilt of the suspects were almost always met by hostility by everyone else who believed the worst of the suspects because, well, they were spoiled brats and two, the mother of the victims said so. Objectivity and fairness proved to puny against the massive outcry for justice and retribution.  Thelma Chiong, the mother of the two sisters, was formidable – she was not averse to making a scene or giving way to histrionics.  Media people were more than happy to sensationalize the whole thing.  The whole rush to justice ended up with Paco Larrañaga and six others thrown in jail.  When Larrañaga was transferred to a jail in San Sebastian, Spain on October 2009 courtesy of a treaty signed by the Arroyo government, there was once again a massive outcry in media.

And now, 16 years later, comes the documentary which has ennobled people to question the wisdom of justice derived mainly by popular clamor.  Whether the current outrage will snowball into something more concrete remains to be seen.

But I do find it disturbing that many people think that the whole travesty happened because of other people.  For example, I was particularly amused at how the likes of Gina Lopez (of ABS-CBN) wailed about how such an injustice could happen in this country, forgetting the immense power of her family’s media network.  Oh please, let us stop looking for other people to blame for the problems in our justice system.  In a country where cases are tried by media, where pundits sit omnipotent jury members, where popularity is everything, where morality is bandied about as blanket justification, we shouldn’t be surprised that injustice happens.

We all know the justice system in this country is bad, horribly bad.  Hopefully we don’t have to make as many documentary films to jolt us into realization that the system is bad because we allow it to be.