Shocking death toll

That the raid on the residence of Ozamiz City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog resulted in the deaths of 15 people is shocking enough. The dead include Parojinog himself, his wife Susan, brother Octavio and 12 others, some of them members of the Barangay Peacekeeping Action Team.

But even more shocking is that the raid seems to have been carried out with planning and deliberation. The Parojinog family’s lawyer denies that the mayor and his security force engaged the police in a firefight at dawn Sunday while the latter were serving a search warrant. At the moment, the mayor’s daughter, Ozamiz Vice Mayor Nova Princess Echavez, and her brother Reynaldo Jr. are under arrest and confined in the PNP headquarters in Camp Crame. Considering the deaths that have occurred in the premises, the Parojinogs and their relatives and friends have reason to be afraid, very afraid.

The police action against the Parojinogs is, it seems, long overdue. The mayor in fact had been named publicly last year as a drug personality by President Duterte, who then belatedly ordered an investigation into the family’s ties to drugs and the notorious robbery and kidnap gang Kuratong Baleleng.

So while the raid on the Parojinog compound should have been expected, it was still shocking news to wake up to.

The public has, it seems, become used to daily shootings and the discovery of corpses the next morning. But the death toll from raids and shootouts, with some corpses even brazenly displayed under the bright sun in front of police headquarters, ramps up the “shock factor” even more.
How far will this campaign to harden the hearts of Pinoys go? And when will authorities decide the limit has been reached?

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“Point of view” is the central device in the movie “Kita Kita” (“I See You”), as it tells the story from the separate perspectives of Lea and Tonyo, two “lonely people” who find themselves and each other in Sapporo, Japan.

The shifting views in the story-telling, though, is ironic since one of the characters is temporarily blind, while the other has a dark secret hidden behind humor and self-deprecation.

But really, “Kita Kita” tells a simple story. It’s a story about moving on from heartache, about how kindness heals wounds caused by other people’s betrayal, and how humor can open even the hardest, pain-filled of hearts.

Word of mouth about this little movie has reportedly turned it into a “sleeper hit,” an unexpected box-office success that, in the cinema where I watched it, hosted full theaters through a good number of screenings, thanks to its short duration. I can only hope that Spring Films, the production outfit that took a risk with the decidedly off-beat pairing of lithe and gorgeous Alessandra de Rossi and comedian Empoy Marquez (who provokes laughs just by his looks) takes from this movie a lesson on how breaking the rules can pay off in generous dividends. One of the people behind Spring Films, actor Piolo Pascual, has had more than an actor’s normal share of rom-coms which have been huge hits. But I guess the boredom created by such a monotonous diet provoked in him a hunger for unconventional fare.

And unconventional “Kita Kita” certainly is. Writer-director Sigrid Andrea Bernardo wrote the bare bones of the story and chose a most unusual setting (at least for Filipinos). The northern Japanese island of Hokkaido and the city of Sapporo are not on the average Pinoy tourist’s itinerary while in Japan. But the scenery and charming buildings serve as a perfect backdrop to the evolving romance of a tour guide temporarily blinded by heartache, and her “eyes,” a dubious drifter who charms with his gentle ways and ferocious funny lines.

Audience members reportedly stayed on for a while at the movie’s close, sorting out their feelings and waiting for evidence of their ugly-crying to fade before exiting the theater. That’s how funny-moving the film is: One minute you’re guffawing at the contrast between the leads, the next you’re tearing up at the depth of their love for each other. Thankfully, the Pinoy audience now knows that a movie has enough room for pathos and punning combined.