Paco Larrañaga's Case: An Unseen Truth

The movie, which is entitled Give Up Tomorrow explains the side of Paco Larrañaga who was said to be framed by the Chiong couple. The movie had presented various loopholes of the Chiong couple, and as well as the bad justice system of the Philippines.

The Chiong sisters’ case was an obvious depiction of the prevalent injustices happening in the Philippines. The allegedly kidnap, murder and rape case to pin Francisco Juan “Paco” Larrañaga and the other six was all politics, as the evidences to pin them were undoubtedly fabricated and falsified.

The crime was allegedly committed by Paco on July 16-17,1997, which, undoubtedly a sheer invention of the opposing party since at that time, Paco was in Quezon City studying and taking up exams. The school holds a record that he was there at those times and there were numerous witnesses to his presence during that time. The defense lawyer of the accused also said that would Paco go to Cebu in the night for some hours to rape someone and return in the morning to attend class?

Moving on, the Judge, Martin A. Ocampo, who was suspected to be a neglectful judge sleeping when witnesses were testifying, also rejected more than 40 witnesses to testify for the accused. A defense lawyer of the accused was also sent to jail by the judge due to the suggestion of having a DNA test to the victim’s dead body because it wasn’t already recognizable. Moreover, the said judge committed suicide after one year of the case of the Chiong sisters due to unknown reasons.

Another lie to pin the accused, was the appearance of an “eye witness” named Davidson Rusia. He said he was involved in committing the crime. The eye witness was an American notorious to be convicted of multiple crimes. In which, has no definite link towards Paco.

There were secret camera footages in the prison where the eye witness was detained that showed the mother of the Chiong sisters, Thelma Chiong, giving gifts and talking to the accused which was counter intuitive of what a mother might feel towards the person involved to the murder of her daughters. She claimed that she gives 4 digit cash values to Rusia, but she does not consider it as bribery.

Paco Larrañaga before was always in the front page of newspapers and among the seven, his name is always in use that time, because it was said that Paco was an easy target. And for now he is still in prison in Spain, he works as a chef since he studied being a chef but still sleeps in prison. He was told to admit that he did the crime that was being accused to him in exchange for his freedom, but he insisted not to because he didn’t really do the crime, which he really shows that he is innocent.

We have been discussing all in favour of Paco Larrañaga, since we didn’t have an opportunity to watch “Jacqueline Comes Home” in cinemas due to bad weather the past days. All in all, even if we had investigated the side of the Chiongs, the bottom line here is the mass media effect. Analyzing the documentary “Give Up Tomorrow”, you can see the difference on how the issue was presented by the media way back 1990s compared to how it has resurfaced today. We can clearly see how the media can manipulate on how we should see a certain issue or matter BEFORE. Sometimes it still happens today, but only the minority is affected because we have learned to dig in more to know what or who to believe. Simple comparison: people before WANTED the Chiong 7 to be sentenced to death, and now, what do we want? #HelpPacoFightInjustice #TheUnseenTruth