richard davis

and since we're talking about some of the stuff i write about, here's one of them. link's also from the inquirer, which picked the story up.

who is richard davis, you might ask. he is a young fil-am soldier, born to a caucasian dad and a filipina mom. after arriving from an assignment in iraq, he and his friends celebrated. hours later, he was murdered.

his story so compelled paul haggis, the genius who wrote million dollar baby and crash, both oscar winners, to do a movie based on this fil-am soldier's mysterious death. he called it "in the valley of elah" and it starred tommy lee jones and susan sarandon.

the story is very special to me because it hit close to home.

richard thomas ong davis was a distant relative. i went to his wake, his funeral and the succeeding family events in his remembrance. i was doing balitang america four years ago but i begged off from doing the story for the newscast.

his mom, auntie remy is a very strong woman. and so is his dad lanny. at first, i was surprised to find out that they agreed to having this movie fictionalize their son's death. it did not make any sense to me because it would just open old wounds, which it really did, but when i talked to them, i realized that they just wanted to hold onto something that would tell parts of their murdered son's story. even if that meant revisiting and rewatching his ordeal, and his last few hours alive.