The curious case of Rolito Go

WERE the sudden disappearance and reappearance of Rolito Go this week a movie instead of a real life event, it would have to be a screwball comedy. Or perhaps a black comedy.

The chain of events as claimed by the family of the rich, convicted killer is so unbelievable that it could not be anything else.

First, Go “disappears” from the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa. Nothing out of the ordinary here because every so often, convicts have been known to escape from the place known to all as “Munti.” But high profile convicts? This is hard to swallow as the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) is fully aware that a convict of Go’s stature should not be allowed to escape, because heads are sure to roll if such an unacceptable event were to happen.

The BuCor knows that the public would suspect that the escape was made easy with the greasing of some palms. The plot quickly thickened. Then his family claimed that Go did not escape, but was actually kidnapped. With a ransom demand to boot. The unknown kidnappers supposedly wanted P1 million for the safe release of the former businessman. In this day and age, such a ransom demand can only be described as meager. At most, it can buy one brand new car, and not even a top-of-theline one at that. But the public is expected to believe that the kidnappers had no idea who their victim was. Also, P1 million would have been loose change for his family to pay.

A bit of sci-fi can be added to the scenario. Perhaps the kidnappers were time travelers from 1991, the year Go killed a college student in cold blood in a road rage incident. Back in ’91, P1 million was a lot of money, wasn’t it?

What takes the cake is the sudden reappearance of Go, barely 24 hours after his mysterious disappearance.

The tale took an unexpected turn – a key plot twist in madcap comedies – when Go claims that he was actually “kidnapped” along with his nephew, a nurse named Clarence Yu.

Unfortunately, the plot now has holes aplenty which are hard to explain. Was Yu “kidnapped” at the same time as Uncle Rolito? If so, does that place him at the National Penitentiary during the time that ninja kidnappers entered the prison and bodily removed Go without anyone noticing?

My what a tangled web we weave, when first we started to deceive.

Go and Yu were supposedly taken to Batangas, and later released. It must be noted that there are many fine beaches in Batangas province, along with numerous resorts. An excellent place for a furlough, it must be said. Then came the final act of the story. The pair boarded a bus and got off at Alabang. The time traveling ninja kidnappers were kind enough to provide the bus fare for the two gentlemen, with Go suffering nothing more than “abrasions and contusions.”

The tale ends with Go heading back to prison. The curtains close and everyone is laughing. Not at the odd twists and turns of the case of the disappearing convict, but at the audacity of whoever wrote the script. Nothing was believable in the shifting scenarios. For those who really want to know what happened, the Machiavellian versions are more acceptable. Certainly there had to be an exchange of cash so that the guards at Munti would fail to notice the exit of the millionaire-convict. At what level is not clear, but it had to be near the top.

It is highly likely that Go was kept on a tight leash as part of the arrangement to see how the public would react to the impossible tale. If the “kidnapping” of Go was publicly accepted, then he would have disappeared entirely. If, however, the public and media were to raise a howl, and if the government were to react angrily, then Go would have to be returned to the roost.

In the past, there have been some great films about escaping from prison. There was The Great Escape and there was Escape From Alcatraz, among others.

But The Curious Case of Rolito Go? What a badly written and badly acted script it was. Two thumbs down for this tale.