While promising actress Jennica Garcia is a doting and hands-on mom to her two daughters in real life, it’s totally a different narrative with her “Saving Grace: The Untold Story” character Sarah Banaag, who’s a spiteful and uncaring mother towards her unica hija, Grace, impressively portrayed by fast-rising child star Zia Grace. 

Ever since the beginning of the story, Sarah has probably stirred up the gigil of viewers with how she never showed motherly care towards her daughter. Moms may be expected to be the one to take good care of their children and the household chores, but not Sarah who passed all her responsibilities at home on Grace and even let her fend for herself since she’s at work most of the time. 

These may seem already too much for a little girl like Grace to handle, yet there were worse things that she had to endure under the wing of Sarah and her stepfather Chito (Christian Bables). As much as we didn’t want to trigger your displeasure on Sarah, we compiled in this Kapamilya Toplist 10 of her scenes from “Saving Grace” that made us both hate and pity her. 

Let’s start with one of her initial confrontations with Chito, wherein she pleaded with him not to be quick in castigating her daughter, especially if she only committed minimal mistakes. The tension turned higher when he reproached her for his method of “disciplining” Grace and when he told her that he’s already tired of taking responsibility for them. Just when we thought that she finally mustered the courage to stand up for herself and Grace, Sarah disappointed us anew as she still caved in to Chito in the end. 

Grace might be able to endure her mom’s indifference, she finally reached her limits when Sarah mercilessly beat her up upon catching her biting Chito’s wrist after he killed and ate her beloved pet chicken, Pipo. She initially assumed that Sarah would take her side that time, but she instead had her greatest nightmare. 

The following day, as social workers and Teacher Patty (Lotlot Bustamante) went to their house to check on Grace after authorities apparently received reports about what transpired the night before, Sarah reiterated that she and her live-in partner didn’t hurt Grace and firmly barred the visitors from entering their house. She might not have told Chito to put Grace in the sack and take her out of the house but that didn’t make her less of a bad mother.  

Many will surely agree that, between Chito and child, she’s supposed to always put Grace’s welfare and best interest first. However, as much as we wanted to sympathize with her for all the sufferings that she has to go through and endure as a single mom, it’s just quite exasperating that she tends to be marupok or fragile when it comes to Chito. She allows herself to be manipulated by him over and over again and heeds everything that he tells her to do.  

And that was further highlighted during that time when Sarah was already desperate to find Grace after she suddenly went missing and was presumed to have drowned in the sea. Just when she was already keen on telling the police about what really happened before Grace went missing and the possibility of her being still alive after Chito related to her that he saw a kid that resembled Grace, he warned her against doing so. He also discouraged her from asking the authorities to continue searching for her since both of them would definitely be arrested and sent to prison. 

As the story about Grace’s plight trended online and became the talk of town, Sarah took advantage of the situation by using her dramatic skills in gaining the sympathy of the public, including Miranda Valdez (Sharon Cuneta), the host of a popular and long-running public service program. Some of her neighbors might have attempted to expose her, but Sarah was able to turn the narrative around and make them appear as the real wicked ones for fabricating stories about her to paint her as a bad mother.  

Since Miranda is known to empathize more with mothers like her, Sarah was able to persuade her that she’s a good, selfless, and enduring mom, who showed Grace nothing but tender loving care. Aside from having her story featured in Miranda’s program and be seen by more audiences, Sarah also received monetary donations, which she and Chito used for shopping instead of its intended use, that is to search for Grace. 

And lastly, apart from letting herself be manipulated by Chito, many were probably disappointed that she chose to overlook his red flags that were already waving at him. During her interrogation with Police Officer Oscar Jimenez (Eric Fructuso), it was revealed that Chito actually had history of child abuse, which she downplayed by saying that people can change. Besides, she also defended him by saying that he has been a good partner to her and a father figure to Grace.  

Is Sarah going to have character development? Well, let’s all find out by not missing an episode of “Saving Grace: The Untold Story,” weeknights, on Kapamilya Channel, Kapamilya Online Live (KOL), TV5, and A2Z.