It's one of these "journalist uncovers scandal" movie. You can change the subject, you can change the time and place, you can change some action around it, but the basic framework can't help but being exactly the same and it will be an All the president's men copy.

That being said, this one being in the Philippines is a tad more violent, and also includes a storyline on one of the criminals while in prison. Compared to those other movies though, despite bragging about being inspired by real facts, from what I could see the "real" part is only related to the prisoners gun for hire business.

It's done well enough that despite the 3h30, you easily get into it, and don't really feel the length. I've seen movies half shorter that felt twice longer than this one.

Once the investigative journalism part really start (that's quite late in the movie), the tie-ins with the national politics were a bit harder to follow and constitutes the slow times of the movie. However it seems they're what links it to the first movie that I didn't see, so surely if you have seen it they don't feel so out of place.