Part 1: The Promise of the Iron Woman
My name is Alejandro “Alex” Reyes. My family were prominent Hacienderos from Davao, owning one of the largest banana and durian export empires in the Philippines. Tragedy struck when my biological parents died in a private plane crash while en route to Manila. I was only twenty years old then, forced to inherit a massive estate surrounded by vultures waiting for their chance to strike.
The most dangerous of them all was Doña Imelda Valderrama, my stepmother.
She married my father when he was already over fifty, while she was just a faded provincial beauty queen in her early twenties. When my father passed away, Imelda was fifty—an age where she used wealth and aesthetic clinics to maintain her sophisticated and sharp beauty. She never wore anything cheap; she was always in expensive, modern Filipiniana silk gowns, smelling of heavy French perfume. In the high-society parties of Ayala Alabang, she was the centerpiece, cunningly charming my father’s old business partners with a deadly smile to maintain her grip on power.
Four years ago, when our family corporation sought to expand processing technology to South Asia, I was forced to move to Pune, India to establish our new branch.
On the day of my departure, Imelda hugged me at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, her tears soaking the shoulder of my barong shirt. She swore before an image of the Lord: — “Alex, leave with a peaceful mind. Angelica is the grandchild of this family, the blood of the Reyes lineage. I will care for her more than my own life.”
I believed her. I believed in what we call Utang na loob (debt of gratitude) and her performative piety. I left her with the authority to manage one-third of the estate and an unlimited credit card to provide for Angelica. But I did not know that for Imelda, one-third was an insult. She wanted the entire kingdom.
Part 2: The Pain of an Overseas Father
The four years in India were a time I lived like a lost soul. Whether in the modern offices of Mumbai or the experimental farms in Pune, I had only one goal: to earn enough money so that Angelica could live the life of a princess.
Every week, I called home via WhatsApp. But Imelda always had a thousand reasons to stop us: — “Angelica is coming home late from her international school.” — “She’s sleeping, don’t wake her up; she’s been under a lot of pressure with her studies lately.”
On the rare occasions I saw my daughter on screen, Angelica looked thin, with dark circles under her eyes. She looked at me as if she wanted to scream, but Imelda’s hand was always clamped firmly on her shoulder—a gesture I mistook for affection, but was actually a way to pinch her flesh every time she dared to speak.
While I was toiling away as an OFW executive, another venomous snake had crawled into my home in Manila. This was Ricardo “Rick” Santos, a lover ten years younger than Imelda. He was a bankrupt real estate broker, a gigolo who preyed on wealthy widows. He moved into the Alabang mansion, using my money to fund his extravagant vices while my daughter slowly became a ghost in her own home.
Part 3: The Gates of Hell in the Heart of Manila
I returned to the Philippines on a drizzly January afternoon in Manila. I wanted to surprise Angelica for her 10th birthday.
The Reyes mansion in Alabang was eerily silent. I used my own key to enter. The smell of cheap gin and heavy cigarette smoke filled the luxurious living room. Scattered on the floor were empty bottles and Rick’s casino receipts.
I called out for Angelica. No response. Her room was empty, her dolls torn apart and discarded. A gut feeling led me down to the bodega (storage room) in the basement—a place usually reserved for old gardening tools.
The storage door was slightly ajar. A foul, musty stench mixed with the smell of iron-like blood hit my nose. I rushed down the rotting wooden stairs. Under a dim yellow light, my heart stopped.
Angelica—my angel—was chained by her ankle to a rusty iron post. She was wearing nothing but tattered pajamas, her body skeletal, huddling on the filthy cement floor. Beside her was a bowl of spoiled rice and a few scraps of dried bread. — “Angelica! My baby!”
She looked up, her gaze blurred. She trembled, her voice sounding like wind whistling through dry leaves: — “Daddy… is it really you? Or has the devil come to hit me again?”
I roared like a wounded animal, using a crowbar to break the chains. As I lifted her, I realized with horror that her body was as light as a dry twig. The crisscrossing scars on her back from being whipped with a leather belt made me choke with a rage I could barely contain.
Part 4: The Black Widow’s Trap
I frantically carried Angelica out to the car to rush her to Makati Medical Center. But as soon as my car reached the Alabang village gate, three PNP (Philippine National Police) patrol cars blocked my path.
— “Alejandro Reyes, you are under arrest for child abuse and frustrated murder!” a senior officer declared.
I froze: — “You’re all crazy! I just got back from India! My stepmother and her lover did this!”
But from behind the police car, Imelda stepped out, wailing and collapsing to the ground like a distraught, pious grandmother. — “Oh my God! Alejandro, how could you be so cruel? Officers, he has been secretly flying back to the country on private flights just to torture her! He said the child was a jinx to the company!”
Rick stood beside her, presenting a fabricated diary and staged photos: — “We tried to stop him, but he threatened us with a gun. Here are the records of his cruelty that I secretly gathered.”
They had bribed the village security and faked immigration logs. In the eyes of everyone at that moment, I was a psychotic rich kid, and she was the poor victim. I was thrown into a detention cell, facing Reclusion Perpetua (life imprisonment).
Part 5: The Rise of a Little Angel
Imelda and Rick miscalculated one thing: they thought a 10-year-old child who had been abused would be broken and silent. But Angelica was the daughter of a resilient Haciendero.
At the hospital, as she regained consciousness, Angelica saw Inspector Manny Garcia—a man known as the “most honest cop in Manila”—taking notes. She didn’t cry. She whispered: — “Uncle Manny… do you believe in God?”
Inspector Manny leaned down: — “I believe in the truth, little one.”
— “In the torn doll in the corner of the bodega… there is a ‘secret.’ I stole a memory card from Tito Rick’s camera when he was drunk.”
It turned out that during her years of imprisonment, Angelica had secretly used an old dashcam that Rick had discarded to record incriminating evidence. She hid the MicroSD card inside the mouth of a tiny Santo Niño (Child Jesus) statue that she always kept with her.
The contents of the memory card:
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Clip 1: Imelda and Rick casually eating steak and drinking wine right above the basement while Angelica’s screams for food echoed from below. Imelda said: “Let her starve for two more days until Alex arrives. She needs to look like a victim abandoned by a drug-addicted father.”
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Clip 2: Rick forcing Angelica to hold a piece of paper and read: “Daddy hit me,” while pressing a lit cigarette against her arm.
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Clip 3: The Zoom calls. Behind the camera, Rick was holding a gun to Angelica’s head, forcing her to smile and say “I’m doing great, Daddy” to me.
Furthermore, Angelica used her fingernails to scratch secret marks on the wooden walls of the bodega, noting the dates and times of the “private flights” Imelda claimed I took, which were later cross-referenced with my GPS data from India.
Part 6: Justice Served
With the help of the renowned lady lawyer, Atty. Maria Clara, the entire conspiracy was stripped bare before the court.
Digital Data: The lawyer proved that on the exact day Imelda claimed I was in Manila torturing my child, I was actually signing a contract at a government office in New Delhi, witnessed by dozens of Indian officials.
Unmasking Rick: The police discovered that Rick Santos was actually a professional conman with standing warrants for estafa in Cebu.
The Deadly Texts: They recovered messages between Imelda and Rick: “Once we get rid of Alex, this entire durian plantation and the mansion will be ours. We’ll move to Switzerland.”
Part 7: The Final Verdict
On the day of the judgment, Doña Imelda was no longer the queen of Alabang. She wore an orange inmate uniform, her hair disheveled.
When Angelica stood to testify via video link, her voice was firm: — “She said she cared for me more than her own life… That’s right, she wanted me dead so she could live off my father’s money. But she forgot that my father taught me to be strong like a durian tree—thorny on the outside, but always keeping its value on the inside.”
The Court’s Decision:
Imelda Valderrama: Sentenced to Reclusion Perpetua without parole for child abuse, kidnapping with serious illegal detention, and frustrated fraud.
Rick Santos: Sentenced to 40 years in prison.
All of Imelda’s assets were seized to establish a trust fund for Angelica’s education.
Epilogue: Light at the End of the Road
I took Angelica away from Manila and returned to our family plantation in Davao. Amidst the vast green fields, she began to learn how to laugh again.
My story is a painful lesson for anyone who trusts too much in flashy appearances and vows made in the name of family. In the Philippines or anywhere else, greed can turn people into demons. But never underestimate the strength of a child.
Today, under the golden sun of Davao, Angelica is running through the fields. She is no longer a victim of the “Devil’s Mask.” She is the hero who saved my life.