New TV drama series links young leads with a strong psychic bond

It looks like the new teleserye, “Kung Ako’y Iiwan Mo,” is a relatively serious look at the lives of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families, both here and abroad. That’s all to the good, because the topic and theme are major components of the whole country’s shared existence and troubles today, and fully deserves significant and insightful treatment on TV and on film.

Even more noteworthy is the fact that the series’ dramatization of the OFW syndrome is multigenerational—it starts with Christopher de Leon’s batch and goes on to include his son, played by Jake Cuenca, and the members of his generation. Hopefully, this will enable the series to arrive at a long-range view and estimation of the festering issues involved.

Suspension of disbelief is required for the first “chapter” of the story, which involves actors who are too mature for their roles as the parents of young children—Christopher, Phillip Salvador, Gloria Diaz, Sandy Andolong, etc. This robs their early scenes of credibility and energy—not a good way to start a new show.

But the series’ start scored plus points with its thematic conceit involving the two couples’ children as newborn babies: One of them was in dire medical straits, but the other baby “energized” it back to vigorous life.

Because of this, the two babies grow up with a strong psychic bond, further strengthened years later by the boy’s heroic rescue of the girl from death by drowning.

The “psychic bond” conceit is fanciful at best, but it makes the relationship of the two young-adult leads (Jake and Shaina Magdayao) uniquely close and deep.

Also commendable is the show’s visualization of its scenes shot in the Middle East, especially the key sequences in which Phillip dies while saving Christopher’s life at their work-site, as well as the scene after that, when Christopher runs out of the ambulance into the teeming, steaming desert, to mourn the death of his best friend and rescuer.

The desert scene was dramatic and moving, heightened further by the glistening, moody darkness of its lighting and staging.

After Phillip’s death, we expect the story to focus on the budding romance that involves the two adolescent “psychic twins,” and on what we perceive to be the growing enmity between Phillip’s widow, Sandy, and Gloria’s character, who resents Sandy for a number of reasons, despite the fact that Phillip saved Gloria’s husband’s life.

Many more upheavals are in store for the story’s central characters, especially when Jake and Shaina eventually take over and also go to work in the Middle East. We hope that despite the constant requirement for teleseryes to keep pumping their storylines with all the flashy melodrama they can muster, this series will continue to make sense of its complex OFW topic and theme.

A daily dose of melodrama may be what the ratings doctor has ordered, but better and more profound treatment than that would be more welcome. After all, there are millions of Filipinos who live the OFW story from day to daunting day, and they would certainly be grateful if their stories were lent more significant sense than they get at the moment.