What had become of Marissa (Jodi Sta. Maria) and Ellice (Iza Calzado) at the much-awaited finale of intense drama revenge teleserye, Ang Sa Iyo Ay Akin? We have been through countless treachery, secrets, and fights so the question of how it ended is finally revealed. But before we dive into the heart-stealing finale, where did this fiery teleserye leave us?
As Marissa and Ellice were busy taking up their battle in court, Belen (Rita Avila) had Caesar (Simon Ibarra) assassinate Marissa. This plan, however, failed as he accidentally shot Nanay Lucing (Maricel Soriano) and Blue (Nico Antonio) instead. Nanay Lucing recovered, but Blue fell to his death leaving Marissa’s fury deeper than ever.
Marissa demanded to see Caesar alone to finally end their feud. Caesar met her with a gun already pointed to her face. Fortunately, Avel (Joseph Marco) was there to save Marissa, yet Cesar had brought Red (Manuel Chua) as his own back-up in case trouble like that ensued. They all got into an intense physical battle up until the cops were able to arrive and finally jail Caesar and Red.
Gabriel (Sam Milby), on the other hand, had been doing everything he could to expose Belen as the snake that she is to Ellice, hoping that his wife can finally be free from her evil mother’s manipulation. Eventually, with the help of Ellice’s friend Agatha (Aya de Leon), they found proof that Belen had been using Ellice’s trust to sneakily steal funds from the Ceñidoza company. This ultimately let Ellice see how a terrible monster Belen is.
In an attempt to fix her family, Ellice made amends. Her guilt and realizations pushed her to admit her mistakes and say sorry to her family. As they kindly accepted and trusted her again, Ellice also braved facing Marissa and her family to ask for their forgiveness.
“Marissa, I’m sorry. I’m sorry sa lahat ng mga ginawa ko sa’yo. I’m sorry lalo na’t alam kong ako ang naging dahilan kung bakit namatay ang anak mo. Gusto ko nang itigil ang paghihiganti ko. Ayoko na ng gulo. I’ve come to realize walang patutunguhang maganda ang pakikipag away ko sa’yo. Marami na ang nasaktan ‘di ba… Gaya ni Blue, si Nanay Lucing, at si Jake,” were the words uttered by Ellice. Nanay Lucing and Jake were quick to forgive, but Marissa refused to believe and doubted her sincerity.
Ellice, not allowing to be one-upped by Marissa, continued with her revenge and once again recruited Caesar. She gained his trust after she saved him from his near-death attempt to escape prison and made him see that they have one common enemy now — Marissa. Ellice set up the place where Marissa would be for Caesar to make the easy kill, but little did he know that Ellice was also trying to hit two birds with one stone as she also tipped authorities off where Caesar would be during his mission to kill Marissa.
Due to some car trouble, Marissa was unable to go to the place Ellice told her to be, surprising the latter with her arrival at the dinner party in her house. This also meant Caesar was left alone at the meeting place only to find out that he was double-crossed once again.
Of course, Caesar wouldn’t let Ellice off that easily and plotted his revenge. At the dinner party where everyone was gathered, Cesar snatched Hope out of nowhere and, in front of all the guests, threatened to kill her as payback.
What happened next? We witnessed it in the finale.
Action scenes so gripping that we didn’t dare blink
As Hope was trapped in Caesar’s grasp, everyone was in a frenzy — some frozen in fear, some screaming at Caesar to stop. Jake (Grae Fernandez) even offered his own life in exchange for Hope. During the whole commotion, Hope was able to find an opening to elbow Caesar in the gut causing him to release her.
While Hope immediately ran away, Gabriel rushed in to tackle Caesar and recover his gun. But the man wasn’t ready to back down so Avel (Joseph Marco) had to enter the brawl to help. Punches and kicks were thrown as panicked shouts were in the background. Emerging with the gun was Caesar.
He pointed it at the first enemy he could see — Ellice. Marissa saw it coming through and hurriedly protected her worst enemy and old friend, making her the receiver of the bullet meant for Ellice. Avel, Marissa’s trusted bodyguard and lover, was in anger and despair for what happened then repeatedly shot Caesar until he fell to his death.
These series of events left our mouths gaped open. The pace, action, and emotion were all equally powerful. Simon Ibarra, Sam Milby, and Joseph Marco’s performance in their hot-blooded altercation definitely kept our adrenaline on high.
Deep emotions bringing forth exceptional acting
While Marissa was battling for her life in the hospital, the usual gentle and rational Nanay Lucing could not bear the hurt anymore. Despite how numbing this situation was for her as a mother, she still made it a point to show Ellice everything Marissa sacrificed, “Napakagrabe ng pinagdaanan ng anak ko sa buhay. Ilang beses na ba siya nagdusa? Ngayon, niligtas pa niya ang buhay mo. Ang dami niyang sinakripisyo para sa’yo… Sa inyong lahat. Ellice, kailangan ba talagang humantong sa ganito?”
Nanay Lucing didn’t stop there because she needed to verbalize and make Ellice feel every abuse and struggle her daughter went through. Ellice, filled with profound guilt and regret, was speechless. All she could do in front of Nanay Lucing was weep in sorrow for her mistakes.
By Marissa’s bed, Avel stayed by her side and begged her to fight, “Natuto ako magmahal at magsakripisyo sa mga mga mahal mo sa buhay. At higit sa lahat, natutunan kong kinumpleto mo ‘yong buhay ko. Kaya ‘di ka pwedeng mawala… Mahal kita, higit pa sa buhay ko.”
Such heartbreaking scene became even heavier and breathtaking because these actors definitely understood their characters. The Diamond Star Maricel Soriano proves once again that she has never lost her award-winning touch. Iza, on the other hand, may have been wowing us the whole series for her fierce looks and acts, but the vulnerability she was able to express here is just as amazing. Joseph Marco, who is commonly part of action fights or serious scenes, was also able to let us see a softer side to his character.
More shocking events unleashed
Ang Sa Iyo Ay Akin always gives us surprises, but it is still astounding how they can shock us until the end.
Ellice, now finding her voice, decided to surrender herself for all the crimes she had committed. After years of avoiding her fate, she came clean to the police for all the illegal doings she was involved in. Even when she can finally be truly happy and loved by her family, she just lets them know, “Kailangan ko na harapin ito at tanggapin so you can be proud of me.”
While this happened, Marissa had her own eye-opening experience. So close to the doors of death, Marissa appeared in the forest that stands as the heaven of his deceased son, Jacob (Zaijian Jaranilla). She hugged him, happy to finally join him in peaceful rest, but suddenly rethought this as she heard her loved ones on earth plead that she fight and live. Jacob, with kindness and sympathy, told his mother that there are people that still need her so it is not her time yet. Marissa understood this and, once again, had to say goodbye to her son to return to her life.
A final Ellice and Marissa face-off to cap a satisfying end
This finale can’t end without the two main bida-kontrabidas facing each other. During the hearing for Ellice’s crimes, Ellice talked to Marissa privately first.
Compared to her fake apology before, Ellice gave an honest speech this time, “Marissa, maaaring hindi mo na ako paniwalaan at patawarin matapos ng lahat ng naging kasalanan ko sa’yo pero gusto ko malaman mo na ngayon, alam ko na napakalaki ng naging kasalanan ko sa’yo.”
Surprisingly, Marissa did not respond at all. She could only stare at Ellice and let the tears filled with emotion fall from her face. Not giving Ellice any verbal forgiveness, she walked away and entered the hearing where Ellice was found guilty and sentenced to a life in prison.
After all this, Marissa visited Jacob’s grave to express her sadness, that his death had to be sacrificed for this whole mess. Though, she also shared her joy and relief that everything has finally ended and they can all live peacefully.
Iza and Jodi were both remarkable as individuals and as enemies from the beginning until the end of this teleserye. They unveiled different colors to each of their roles making it easy for us to empathize with their characters, regardless if what they were doing was good or bad. Plus, their electric archenemy chemistry is without a doubt intoxicating given that episode after episode, we just wanted more face-offs between them. Now, in this finale, they continued to show how they could deliver their scene together perfectly. It may not be one of their usual clashes, but we could feel the same tension and passion behind it all.
As for the story, it was actually refreshing to, at long last, have a dignified confrontation between Ellice and Marissa. Both characters' resolutions are enlightening because the realizations they had were realizations that we, as an audience, experienced too. As much as we craved the revenge, plotting, and scheming, we know that it was all getting them nowhere and justice will still truly prevail.
Ang Sa Iyo Ay Akin made us understand the complicated intricacies behind relationships and how this can affect our loved ones. We are left to wonder what we, ourselves, would do when faced with such difficult choices and would we be willing to accept the consequences.
Rave tweets from netizens
As a lot of viewers sorely anticipated the finale of Ang Sa Iyo Ay Akin, not only the official hashtag #ASIAAHeartStealingEnding made it to the top Philippine trends on Twitter, but the other hashtags and topics made up by the fans – such as “MARICEL AS LUCING SIGNING OFF”, “Team Marissa”, “Nanay Lucing”, and “Ellice” – as well.
The netizens praised the ensemble cast, the whole JRB Creative Production and its creators Dindo C. Perez and Julie Anne R. Benitez for being able to pull off a highly successful project amidst the pandemic and the challenges faced by the network, reacted real-time on the thrilling and touching scenes they just witnessed, shared their learnings, and even wished for a Book 3!
Here are some of their enthusiastic tweets:
Ang Sa Iyo Ay Akin may now be over, but it will surely go down in history as one of the most iconic, most well-loved, and most remarkable teleseryes that ever came on Philippine television!
Its talented pool of writers comprised of Keiko Aquino, Jann Kayla Mendoza, Hannah Cruz, Jasper Paras, Levi Jun Miscala, and RJ Carbonell all did a great job in coming up with a well-written and compelling script and consistently unpredictable narrative that made us all hooked every night.
Seasoned directors FM Reyes and Avel Sunpongco work on this one is also highly commendable with how they’re able to excellently navigate the story and guide the actors in effectively portraying their characters from the beginning up to the end.
And, of course, this wouldn’t be all possible without the overwhelming support of the avid viewers. Thus, thank you for the overwhelming support Kapamilya, Ka-A2Z, and Kapatid!