Today is the fifth death anniversary of Federico "Toto" Natividad. I didn't want to give him too much attention. However, watching Give Up Tomorrow reminded me of Butakal, a film released in 1999 that was effectively in limbo. The film was downright not wholesome, and accessing it requires extreme discretion like any R-rated film. The film remains banned from public screening. It seems he was content to let the film "go unscreened" if Case Unclosed's episode on the Chiong Sisters came out a year after the Supreme Court's final decision on his film.
I was only able to see the film uploaded on YouTube, and it's no longer available. Natividad's film didn't advertise itself as the "Chiong Sisters Story". The story was pure fiction based on Davidson Rusia's testimony. The movie may have been a poke at the popular public opinion at that time, that the Chiong 7 were already guilty before they were proven guilty. It turned out that Francisco Juan "Paco" G. Larrañaga was actually in Manila, making the allegation that Paco courted Marijoy even more irrelevant to the case. Right now, anything I write about the movie's plot is directly derived from memory. Memory is the least reliable tool in forensics.
The movie's events are a direct challenge to common sense. The main villain, Jaco Lozano (played by the late John Regala), is an unusually loud villain. Jaco and his gang were shameless in their behavior. Every last bit of the plot was that Jaco and his men were "untouchable". That was the image that the Chiong Sisters' narrative was with Paco and his co-accused. A lot of scenes in the movie felt like, "How can these villains be so loud and yet somehow still get away with it?" In fact, you might want to realize that cover-up payments can't cover up crimes that are so loud, like the ones Jaco and his gang were committing.
Jaco was already known to be a loudmouth in the film, yet he was seen attending mass, a place where one can easily be spotted, and parishioners would've known him. Jaco felt more like a cartoon villain in an R-18 film. For instance, there was a scene where Jaco and his gang pressured a waitress they had raped at the beginning to shut up about her being raped. We could also go into the fact that in that film, money could easily buy off silence for very loud offenses. If I'm not wrong, corruption is rather strategic. A corrupt cop would probably reject any deal to cover offenses that are too open. In real life, the waitress's rape and suicide scene means Butakal was going to end with Jaco's gang arrested, before they could even proceed to the main plot!
One way or another, the film was operating on action movie logic. The film featured too many tactical blunders that made Rusia's narrative all too unbelievable. Scenes like the women getting stripped, gang-raped, and clothes back on when it's convenient are illogically impossible. The use of heavy rock music at a ravine would've easily invited the police over. Either way, I felt the film's banning wasn't about how inappropriate it was for people below 18. Rather, it was because of the possible seeds of doubt planted during that time. The film never made it into public viewing. However, it didn't mean that silence was established. Joseph Estrada stepped down from the presidency in 2004. Estrada and Atty. Hilario G. Davide Jr. was no longer on good terms after that.
However, banning Butakal didn't do much to silence people about the Chiong Case's irregularities. After 2007, Case Unclosed had Kara David feature the Chiong Case in a 30 minute episode. The case covered important figures where people were allowed to do the talking. The Uy brothers' mother, Marlyn Uy was also interviewed. The late Jose Miguel R. Gallego was also featured. These people didn't make it into the final cut for Give Up Tomorrow, which came out in 2011. The more I watched the 30-minute clip, the more it gave me the essentials to understand Give Up Tomorrow. However, Give Up Tomorrow was too focused on Paco for my taste. I preferred Case Unclosed's episode because it featured more of the suspects instead of focusing primarily on Paco.
My theory is that Natividad may have been the silent contributor. I believe that he was involved with both. He chose to become a "ghost" if ever. Either way, I still think Natividad played an importart part in exposing the mistrial of the decade in Cebu City.
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