The Philippine Chase - Film Synopsis
Penn is assigned to watch the wife of a stockbroker. On the way to the surveillance he notes a black Ford following too closely. Later, ready to quit the stake-out due to the wife's inactivity, a gravel voiced male accosts him, demanding to know what he is doing in the neighborhood. An altercation ensues, and the gravel voiced assailant is picked up by a man driving a Black Ford. Several minutes later, the wife leaves the house, and Penn follows her to the Top of the Mark Cocktail Lounge in San Francisco, where she meets a woman her same age. When the wife leaves, Penn's surveillance is broken as he loses her in traffic.
Penn returns to his office where his partner, PZ, is with a new client, Filipe Castro, the Chief of Security for the Philippine Airlines, who is accompanied by the stockbroker's wife. The new client wants 24 hour surveillance a girl named Yletta for a week. He leaves a sizeable retainer, and the surveillance is planned.
The next morning Penn arrives at the stockbroker's office to deliver the surveillance report on the wife, and is amazed to see receptionist is the woman the wife met in the cocktail lounge. Penn delivers the report, noting the meeting of the two women, and giving his opinion the wife is a paid escort at times.
Penn and PZ begin the Yletta surveillance. She leaves her house at midnight, and drives to the Daly City bowling alley, where she meets a man and exits the alley with him. They talk and embrace outside her car, and he hands her a white envelope case with a string fastener, which she drops in the mail slot of an apartment building on her way home.
Penn reports the activities to Castro. Several nights later Penn and PZ are baffled by a new report that the stockbroker is killed by an assailant using an automatic rifle. Yletta leaves her house at her usual time, and goes to the bowling alley. Penn and PZ follow, and while waiting in the parking lot, a black Ford arrives.
When Yletta and her boyfriend again embrace beside her ca, the black Ford races up. The passenger fires a rapid burst from an Uzi machine gun, and Yletta's boyfriend is killed. His body protected her. Penn and PZ race up, grab the panic stricken girl, toss her in the rear seat of Penn's car, and race out of the parking lot, before Ford turns around for another pass.
They learn Yletta is an agent for Marcos, and Castro is really the Chief of Philippine Intelligence, planning to embarrass the Marcos government before the elections in which Aquino is running against Marcos. When Yeltta learns Penn reported the envelop delivery, she explains the apartment is a safe house for passing information to Marcos, and Castro's knowledge of it puts the occupants in peril. The house is raided by assassins, so Yletta decides Penn and PZ must accompany her to the Philippines to give a report to Marcos in person.
During the trip to the Philippines they are dogged everywhere by men in black Fords, who seem to know their route. A chse thorugh Manila's main sewer eliminates the Fords, and the three eventually reach the house of Yletta's cousin, where a party is in full swing. Yletta learns the party is to celebrate the expected win of Benigno Aquino, who is also Yletta's uncle. During the party, General Ver, Marcos' treacherous chief assistant, arrives with the gravel voiced male in the black Ford who accosted Penn during the surveillance of the stockbroker's wife. They learn Castro plans to assassinate Aquino when he arrives at the international airport, have the blame put on General Ver, causing Marcos to lose the election. The three race to the airport, but fail to stop the assassination, which leads to the resolution of the plot that twists and turns to the surprise ending.
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