What the good guys don’t know

Angel Aquino

It’s tough being the good guys in TV drama series these days, because they are often left in the dark, while the villains with their hidden motives and agendas pretty much have the run of the place.

Why this is so is obvious: TV series writers want viewers to know what they’re up against, so they can root for them as they try to beat the heavy odds stacked up against them and figure out the truth—before it’s too late!

The “in the dark” device is great for a sense of suspense and foreboding, but it sometimes makes the clueless good guy look like a schmuck—especially when sordid secrets are hidden from him for months on end.

That’s what happened on “Ang Probinsyano,” where Coco Martin and his heroic colleagues didn’t know for a really long time that Albert Martinez and his son, played by Arjo Atayde, were in fact the villains Coco and company had been trying to hunt down and unmask for more than a year.

Well, that conundrum was finally unraveled and the villains exposed and killed. But that new “chapter” of “Ang Probinsyano” is still at it, surrounding Coco with a new batch of bad guys in sheep’s clothing, to foil him all over again:

In the course of the new proceedings, Coco saves the life of a top government intelligence boss, Hipolito (played by John Arcilla), who’s naturally grateful to him.

Little does Coco know, however (but the viewing public does), that Hipolito is in fact a bad guy—he’s the one who’s ordered the planting of multiple bombs throughout the metropolis!

Worse, one of the bombs explodes in a mall—and Coco’s son Ricky Boy (Al Vaughn Chier Tuliao) is killed in the blast.

This and other murderous depredations make Hipolito and his similarly evil assistant (Sid Lucero) monsters in viewers’ eyes—but Coco knows nothing about it.

Adding to the tragic irony is the fact that another intelligence executive, played by Angel Aquino, is a good person—but her son is also killed in the blast!

All of these tragic and treacherous developments, coming one on top of another, are intended to ramp up
the storytelling’s fear and terror quotient. But they happen in such relentless profusion and lack of selectivity that the viewer reels from the unrelieved onslaught.

It’s like watching three Shakespearean tragedies in only one month—what will they do for an encore?!

We trust that, after last month’s sustained salvo of shock tactics, the show can relax a bit and work on detailing the tragic repercussions of its serial depredations.

Even the “rebel commander” character in the series, played by Lito Lapid, is fooled by some of his men—
led by Jhong Hilario—who, unknown to him, have been planting all those bombs, their monstrous services paid for by Hipolito and his group.

Lapid’s character is technically not a good guy, but even he is tricked? What is going on?

Whatever it is, it’s much too much, so everyone should just let up a bit, stop shocking viewers into neurotically watching the show, and take a breather.