I gave this a miss when it was first shown on theaters because local marketing tried to sell it as a Filipino version of Neeson's Taken, and I didn't want another attempt to make money by ripping off flavor of the month films. Turns out the marketing was not only inaccurate, but also a disservice to the film.
Alagwa is not an action film. The lead character is not an action star, and the only fights he got into in the entire film is with a pedophile and a pimp, and it was pretty much one sided because the former was overweight while the latter is a coward who symphatized with him and wanted to help.
It was a very uncomfortable watch. I'm a relatively new father and the events in the film really do happen in the country: children being abducted and sold to god knows who (or where.) The main incident that caused the protagonist's son to get abducted comes off as a stupid move on his part, but it's still all too real. I can imagine less paranoid fathers committing the same mistake.
Some of the situations felt contrived (not going to spoil the specifics, but he did find his son in the end, although it's not exactly a happy ending.) but the actors are good enough that the scenes still work.
