The four-and-a-half-year incarceration of Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. and eventual acquittal in December 2018 is more than just a story of a man wrongly accused and set free by the truth. It is more than just a story of political persecution; the meteoric rise and harrowing fall of an action superstar-turned-public servant; and the long-awaited albeit no less bitter end of the physical, emotional and mental torture that come with a prison’s four walls.
Former Senator Revilla’s detention in Camp Crame since 2014 [over his alleged and disproven involvement in the controversial Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel scam case] is, at the very core, the story of two people whose love for one another and vows of marriage had been put to the ultimate test. And as difficult and painful their struggle had been, the fallen hero of the movies and the Caviteños has found a happy ending anew as a revivified husband to his remarkably devoted wife, Lani Mercado.