The story was narrated as if it were ripped out of the pages of a suspense,

fantasy, thriller novel. It was started when two sisters (the Chiong sisters) from Cebu left
work and never make it home and somehow a young man who was wrongfully accused
of a crime then sentenced to death even, thou, he’s living 300 miles away in Manila,
despite the overwhelming evidence of his innocence of the crime accused. One of the
most controversial trials in the country’s history, which exposed the unprecedented form
of judicial exploitation, long-simmering, and racial hostilities among the population.

Two grieving mothers entangled in a case both looking for justice but in a
different form, one mother becomes a media darling who seek justice for her dead
daughters, and the other waits for proper execution and rendition of justice to his son,
which ended the nation’s use of capital punishment but neglects to set free an innocent
man and took more than a decade of trials just to decide whether to spare him or
execute him. But the narrative was true, against a backdrop of tabloid journalism,
political intrigue, oligarchy, and police misconduct.

This narrative of the Chiong family vs Larrañaga family was a great example of a
case of wrongful conviction, though the documentary Give up Tomorrow only highlights
one case within the Philippine judicial system, however, it illuminates a larger concern
over unlawful persecution, both the Philippines and Worldwide. At that time, it was said
that it was too intimidating to go against the police or even the Plaintiff’s family itself
because it was an omnipotent force around this whole thing that they can not fight
against. The President of that time was fully aware also of the situation of the case but
decided not to act on anything to balance the scale of justice instead he sided with the
greater power (the oligarchs) which in this case the Chiongs, giving more injustice to the
Larrañaga family. Even Paco's fellow students and instructors took the stand to verify
his alibi, the judge cut short their testimony, declaring that there were "too many"
witnesses. Paco was never allowed to take the stand. Furthermore, out of nowhere, the
police pick up a man named Rusia to testify on what happened that day. He stated that
he was present on the day the crime was committed and with the other persecuted
suspects, amazingly the court decided to listen with no hesitation or question his
credibility even Paco and other suspects mentioned that they do not know this man at
all, this resulted in the persecution has a valuable case against the accused. Moreover,
another mortifying point of our rotten judicial justice system was Judge Ocampo who
was assigned to handle the case, it was said in the lawyer's oath “I will maintain
allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines, I will support the Constitution and obey the
laws as well as the legal orders of the duly constituted authorities therein; I will do no
falsehood, nor consent to the doing of any in court; I will not wittingly or willingly
promote or sue any groundless, false or unlawful suit, or give aid nor consent to the
same; I will delay no man for money or malice, and will conduct myself as a lawyer
according to the best of my knowledge and discretion, with all good fidelity as well to the
courts as to my clients; and I impose upon myself these voluntary obligations without
any mental reservation or purpose of evasion.” But this person throws away his dignity,
credibility, and pride just to seek a higher justification by the people fabricating this
accusation among the 7 innocent men.

This event made me question our judicial government and even those who are in
jail, that are guilty of what they are accused of, or maybe some of them are just like
Paco Larrañaga a victim of fabricated crime with no chance of defending themselves to
those who abuse the power. Moreover, even with the help of foreign legislation and
appeal, no one can go against those family that has a connection to the higher power in
our justice systems.

The reputation of the Philippines justice system shows that Larrañaga’s case is
not unusual. The Supreme Court of the Philippines released information in 2004 that
cited a 71.77 percent judicial error rate in capital cases in the period from 1993 to 2004
when capital punishment was still legal, a percentage determined by the total number of
death convictions that had been either reversed or pardoned. During this time, 651 of
907 convicted persons were saved from lethal injection due to unjust conviction (Chin,
2012)

Another factor affecting this was the media’s involvement in the Chiong case
which seemed unlawful and prejudiced to many observers. From the taped re-
enactment that demonized the seven young men on the prosecution to a news
broadcast that referred to the defendant by various disparaging names, media
responsibility become a point of argument for the Larrañaga’s domestic and
international supporters. In a July 2012 opinion piece on the GMA News website,
blogger and essayist Katrina Stuart Santiago revisited the media’s involvement in the
Chiong case. She writes that “the media saw the bad boy stereotype and sold it to us as
the truth behind if not the premise of, this story of crime. Certainly, this was the state of
media in 1997, in a grand display of gross sensationalism and biased reportage that I’m
sure any media personality would want to deny.”. Even thou the media could balance
out the scale of injustice that time, by delivering both sides of the stories and giving
humane respect to the affected family, however, no one dared to touch that uncharted
waters, because either they were too afraid to go against the plaintiff's power and
influence or they were too afraid to lose their job and life in the process.

The Philippines has a lot of influential families that have ties to the higher power,
especially the justice system, police, media, etc. But is too unethical to frame someone
and damage his life including his family, just to prove a crime that they fabricated to
cover up the truth about their family's hidden affairs. God knows what happened to the
Chiong Sisters, and who knows what the hidden agenda on why they fabricated that
type of injustice. But one thing for sure, as long as you are carrying the biggest, most
influential, dynastical, surname which affects everything around you, you can bend
anything, especially the justice system and the police morality, yet we ordinary people
who will suffer for their cover-ups and screw-ups because for them we are just pawns
and scapegoats and expendables for their true nature of intentions.
References

Chin, J (2012, Oct. 4) Documentary on Wrongful Conviction in the Philippines to air on

PBS, Retrieved From
https://californiainnocenceproject.org/2012/10/documentary-on-wrongful-
conviction-in-the-philippines-to-air-on-pbs/

GMA News. “The Refusal to Give Up Today.”

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/267007/opinion/therefusal-
to-give-up-today

Asia Times Online. “Wrongful Conviction Puts

Spotlight on Japanese Justice.”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/NF30Dh01.html

Innocence Project. “The Causes of Wrongful Conviction.” Retrieved from

http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand

Innocence Project. “Eyewitness Identification Reform.” Retrieved from:

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Eyewitness_
Identification_Reform.php

Innocence Project. “Facts on Post-conviction DNA Exonerations.” Retrieved from.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Facts_on_PostConviction_
DNA_Exonerations.php

The Week. “25 Years of Wrongful Convictions: By the Numbers. “Retrieved from,
http://theweek.com/article/index/228292/25-years-of-wrongfulconvictions-
by-the-numbers