Remembering The Chiong Sisters Dramatization From "The Calvento Files"

The COVID-19 season has given me some time to really do some throwbacks and flashbacks. One of the shows I used to watch on ABiaS-CBN was The Calvento Files. It was an investigative journalism program by the late Antonio Alberto "Tony" Calvento who died last 2014. That would be four years before the release of the movie Jacqueline Comes Home and three years after the release of the controversial documentary Give Up Tomorrow. My memory of the episode of The Calvento Files is now blurred since I was only 13 years old when I saw it. It was also during the December break when I saw the episode. It was a hot case that happened when I was 12 and it was aired DURING THE TRIAL. Yes, that was mighty unethical since the case was going on and nobody was sure if Juan Francisco "Paco" G. Larranaga was really the leader of the gang. The episode had some clips featured in the documentary Give Up Tomorrow which proved that the whole dramatization was based on half-truths. 

I could remember some of the cast but not all. It wasn't just Nino Muhlach as Paco - the same reason why Nino ended up apologizing to Paco last 2018. 2018 was also when the movie Jacqueline Comes Home hit the theaters. I could also remember how the actresses who played as the presumed deceased Jacqueline and Marijoy actually looked prettier than the real sisters. It even featured Angelica Panganiban as the youngest Chiong sister namely Debbie. I did laugh at Angelica's selection as Debbie due to the actress looking much better than the youngest sibling. Debbie has been mistaken to be Jacqueline to be allegedly still alive but evidence proves otherwise. Nino did really fit the role of Paco being both fat and good-looking. What Nino never realized was that he was asked to defame an innocent person. Back then, the media was so anti-Paco without realizing the photographic evidence for Paco being in Quezon City at the time of the crime was very real. Right now, I even wished that Jaime Fabregas or Willie Nepomuceno (who was still parodying Erap in ABC-5's Ispup) portrayed the late Judge Martin Ocampo. Ocampo was seen to be rather incompetent. Later, Ocampo finally decided to END HIS LIFE five months after the trial ended. 

I felt like ABiaS-CBN was riding on the anti-Paco hype at that time. Many of my relatives and peers (including myself) were anti-Paco during the trial. I even felt indignation at that time because of the media hype. Was ABiaS-CBN more interested in ratings than the truth? Was Calvento more concerned about the ratings of The Calvento Files than the truth about the Chiong sisters? Calvento as a journalist could've at least bothered to check the school where Paco was in and the bar in Quezon City where the guys held their farewell party. There was evidence that Paco was INDEED in Manila the entire time. There were even documentaries such as school attendances which can make anyone say, "If the logbook isn't broken then why fix it?"Instead, Calvento decided to ride on the media hype perhaps out of fear that the show's ratings could drop if it presented the inconvenient truth that Paco was indeed in Manila. The anti-Paco hype was so strong that to disagree with it meant to be mauled by the mob. It was a shock for me that Paco was indeed innocent. Though, Leo Lastimosa (a reporter of ABiaS-CBN) was later featured in the documentary. Karen Davila also interviewed both Marty Collins and Marty Syjuco during the reign of former president Noynoy Aquino. 

Either way, the episode itself was exposed for what it was in Give Up Tomorrow - a lopsided dramatization with the wrong people tagged in a crime that happened. Fortunately, the anti-Paco hype has died down ever since the documentary came out. Yet, the damage has been done and the real killers are probably still out there. It's time to keep the case alive because it shows just how bad the Philippine justice system is.