Institute History
Description
“Why should anyone care about a citizen who is half way across the world facing death penalty in a country most of us don't even know about? Because the minute you forget about justice, anywhere in the world, that's the beginning of the breakdown of society.”—Sarah de Mas, Fair Trials International (London, England)
On a stormy night in July 1997, two young girls disappear without a trace . . .
Give Up Tomorrow is a feature-length documentary film that tells the story of a high-profile miscarriage of justice and its unfolding international repercussions. Simultaneously a murder mystery and an exposé of endemic corruption in the Philippines today, Give Up Tomorrow looks intimately at the case of Paco Larrañaga, a young mestizo student accused in 1997 of killing two young Chinese-Filipino sisters on the provincial island of Cebu.
Capturing the rapacious media circus surrounding the trial, Give Up Tomorrow reveals the extraordinary judicial violations that resulted in Paco’s death sentence and spiraling human rights abuses in the post-Marcos era. Secret filming by Paco from his cell in Bilibid Prison exposes the appalling conditions of a prison system stretched to breaking point in which inmates—40% estimated innocent of the crimes convicted—are dying at an alarming rate from disease, murder, and suicide. Spanning over a decade, Give Up Tomorrow chronicles the controversial case dubbed "The Trial of the Century," the communal grief of two mothers as they fight for polarized versions of
justice, and the aftermath of the trial – the Chiong girls never found and Paco languishing on death row.
This story is intensely personal with far-reaching global implications: Paco's case was eventually championed by international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Rights Committee; their efforts led to the abolishment of capital punishment in the Philippines, saving not only Paco’s life but hundreds of inmates whose possible innocence may have been disregarded by flawed judicial and social systems. Introducing world audiences to the
fragile democracy of a former Spanish and US colony, Give Up Tomorrow points to a huge crisis in the Philippine criminal justice system, a state of affairs that puts everyone who lives there at constant risk.