How often does a movie spark outrage and reignite the consciousness of a new generation of Filipinos about the miscarriage of justice? Not often, but it happened this week. The film is called Jacqueline Comes Home starring Meg Imperial and Donnalyn Bartolome, and it is based on a sensational case from the late 1990s.
The actresses portray 21-year old Jacqueline and 23-year old Marijoy Chiong, Filipino-Chinese Cebuana sisters who disappeared on July 16, 1997. A body, raped and murdered, was found two days later, at the bottom of a ravine. It was later identified to be Marijoy; Jacqueline remains missing. One would expect that the public would be demanding for justice for the sisters but it is the other way around—they are calling for the release of Francisco “Paco” Larrañaga, accused to be the mastermind of the crime.
Most of the people calling to boycott Jacqueline Comes Home are those who have seen the award-winning documentary Give Up Tomorrow (2011). The documentary, produced by Marty Syjuco, tells the story from the side of the accused. The hour-and-a-half-long documentary was able to show how the trials, which reached all the way up to the Supreme Court, were handled poorly, and that the case only hinged on a questionable state witness. Despite the lack of evidence, the seven men who were accused of abducting the sisters were jailed and put on Death Row.
A body, raped and murdered, was found two days later, at the bottom of a ravine. It was later identified to be Marijoy; Jacqueline remains missing.
Seven years after the documentary's release, entertainment giant Viva has just released Jacqueline Comes Home, a movie told from the point of view of the Chiong family. The movie is directed by the 25-year old Ysabelle Peach Caparas, daughter of Carlo J. Caparas. Like any daughter, she feels most pressured by her father, himself known for his exploitation and massacre films, including The Maggie dela Riva Story (1994), Lipa Massacre (1994), Cory Quirino Kidnap: NBI Files (2003).
It was the elder Caparas who approached Thelma Chiong, the mother of the sisters, about creating a film based on the sisters’ case and the family’s ensuing ordeal. At first, Thelma said she protested the making of the film, fearing the reopening of old wounds. However, when rumors about their family started circulating in social media, she agreed to the film, seeing it as a venue to clear the air. Some of these rumors, according to Thelma, include the story that one or both sisters are actually still alive and living in Canada. Another is that their family is connected to a drug trafficking ring, which could have caused the sisters’ disappearance.
"Many netizens who support the notion that there was a mistrial were born before [sic] the Chiong case started, or were too young. I am saddened by this because it not only opens wounds on my part, but also on my family who has suffered so much since this case started," Chiong told SunStar Cebu.
Actress Imperial also defended the movie, saying that it isn’t “biased,” and focuses instead on the emotional trauma that the Chiong family experienced after the sisters’ disappearance. Despite this claim, the trailers clearly show that the story is told from the POV of the Chiongs, which the sisters’ mother has already admitted to. Parts of the film’s narrative also follow the testimony of Chiong’s witness Davidson Rusia.
This isn’t the first time that the Chiong case was made into a media spectacle. In fact, while the case was still ongoing, a highly dramatic re-enactment of the case based on Rusia’s testimony was broadcast by a major TV network. Journalists also reported sensationalized versions of the testimonies, to the point that erroneous information was reported as fact: How much semen was found in Marijoy’s body? Some journalists said it was a cupful and others, just a speck on her underwear.
Whatever the media spewed out, the public ate up. People started calling the case the Vizconde of Cebu, alluding to the bloody massacre in Manila just six years prior to the Chiongs' murders. It was a case that gripped the nation that had a similar antagonist—a rich, bad boy who could have gotten away with murder, yet didn’t. People who sided with the Chiongs were ecstatic that finally, a rich boy who had political connections was going to jail with the rest of the petty thieves and kanto adiks. Despite Paco being part of the prominent Osmeña clan, he was not untouchable. The public was thoroughly convinced of his guilt, until Syjyco's documentary years later.
What really transpired on the night of July 16, 1997? Are the sisters really dead? Why was Paco and six other men, most of whom were from prominent families, implicated in the disappearance of the sisters?
When rumors about their family started circulating in social media, Thelma Chiong agreed to the film, seeing it as a venue to clear the air. Some of these rumors, according to Thelma, include the story that one or both sisters are actually still alive and living in Canada.
