Reflection Paper on ‘Jacqueline Comes Home (The Chiong Story)’

Romina E. Villamor

The movie is based on the 1997 kidnapping, rape and murder of Cebuana sisters Marijoy and
Jacqueline Chiong. It was decided on February 3, 2004 convicting the accused Francisco Juan Larrañaga,
Josman Aznar, Rowen Adlawan, Alberto Cao, Ariel Balanasag, Davidson Ariel Rusia, James Anthony Uy and
James Andrew Uy of the special complex crime of kidnapping and serious illegal detention with homicide
and rape. They were sentenced to suffer the penalty of death by lethal injection.

‘Jacqueline Comes Home’ however centered not on the legal aspect of the case but on the trials
confronted by the Chiong family. Marijoy and Jacqueline were raped. The latter being thrown into the
ravine while the former was missing. Both death and absence without certainty of making present brought
grief to the family, then the failed effort of looking for the missing other. The quest to find the other made
the mother lost too from the confines of the home. Towards the end of the film, Mrs. Chiong found her
way back to the family as she claims she would never leave again as she promised the youngest Chiong
who in the film was depicted as another Jacqueline Chiong considering her semblance. The films’
projection of her as a look-alike of the older sister was shown apparently to dispel rumors of Jacqueline
Chiong being still alive. Also as the metaphor for the title. Jacqueline indeed has come home. Hence it
appealed much to the subjective emotion and sympathy rather than on objective logic and critical
evaluation of the case.

As it unfolds, the movie’s veering away from legalities and technicalities made it seemingly lacking
in central theme as it tries to present different areas of the story with flashback episodes. It even failed in
establishing itself as an appealing crime movie. Overall, it is not much of interest to me as a lawyering
student considering that it has weighed or leaned too much on the bias of depicting the accused/ convict
from the very beginning as the perpetrator of the crime. I was expecting more on the presentation of the
witnesses, evidence and the procedure that would ground the conviction of the accused. It is simply a
product of cinematography that would appeal to the curious but less so legal mind of the populace.