Jericho Rosales and Janine Gutierrez lead the upcoming Filipino psychological thriller, where suspicion, screenshots, and loyalty tests make love feel like a risk.
Spoiler note: This article discusses the first episode of The Loyalty Game.
The fear that someone you love might be lying carries a pain many people know too well.
Sometimes, it starts with a late reply. Sometimes, it is a deleted message, a strange name on a screen, or a feeling you cannot explain without sounding paranoid. In the digital age, suspicion has its own language. It comes with screenshots, timestamps, archived posts, burner accounts, and group chats where friends try to decode what someone really meant.
The Loyalty Game, the new Filipino psychological thriller from Prime Video and ABS-CBN Studios, takes that anxiety and turns it into something darker. Inspired by the real-life “loyalty test” trend on social media, the series is not just asking whether someone cheated. It asks what happens when trust disappears and people start looking for proof instead.
Set in the fictional town of Vallente, the series follows Ana Madrigal, played by Janine Gutierrez, and Ben Santos, played by Jericho Rosales. They have been married for seven years, which makes the tension feel heavier. This is not a casual relationship where someone can simply walk away after one bad sign. This is marriage, a shared life, and a version of love that has lasted long enough to look stable from the outside.
Of course, that is usually where the trouble starts.
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Ana feels something is off
In the first episode, Ana is already doubting Ben’s faithfulness, though it does not immediately give viewers the full answer. One of the most unsettling moments happens when Ana wakes up in the middle of the night and realizes Ben is not beside her. She looks for him, but later, after getting back in bed, she wakes up and finds him there as if nothing happened. Ben tells her she may have been dreaming.
Was Ana really dreaming? Did Ben leave and come back? Is he hiding something, or is she being made to question herself?
For anyone who has ever had a gut feeling dismissed, the moment feels uncomfortably real. The scary part is not only the possibility that Ben may be lying. It is the possibility that Ana may already know something is wrong, but the person beside her keeps making her doubt her own mind.
By the end of the first episode, the show gives viewers more reason to stay suspicious. Ben is seen meeting a woman played by Yassi Pressman in secret. Whether it is an affair, a setup, or something more complicated, the series does not say yet. It only opens the door, then leaves us looking through it.
Jericho Rosales says Ben scared him
During the post-screening panel, Jericho Rosales made it clear that The Loyalty Game should not be treated as another usual infidelity drama.
“It’s not your typical kabit-kabitan. It’s not a kabitan show,” he said.
Rosales also opened up about what drew him to Ben, who feels hard to read in the pilot. When The POST asked what keeps him interested in characters who live in morally gray spaces, he said he tends to dive deep into his roles and look for the tension inside them.
“I had to get to know a part of me,” Rosales said. “Do I have similarities with this? Is there something here that I can create? Is there something here that I can breathe life into?”
He also talked about looking for the fight inside a character, especially the tension between what that person wants and what they refuse to face. With Ben, that tension seems to be part of the danger.
“The character scared me, really, truly,” Rosales admitted. He even shared that there were moments when he considered not accepting the project.
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The series’ sharpest hook is the loyalty testing angle
For those unfamiliar with it, loyalty testing is a real online practice where someone hires another person to test whether their partner will flirt, respond, or cross a line. The tester usually starts a conversation with the target, sends screenshots to the client, then blocks the person once the test is done. If the partner “fails,” the tester gets paid.
During the panel, the cast talked about how these women come from different circumstances. Some have other jobs. Some do it as a side hustle. Some are trying to support their families. Some are simply trying to earn in an economy where everyone is looking for extra income.
Yen Santos, who plays one of the loyalty testers, shared that her character’s choices come from love for her child. Elisse Joson also said that aside from researching how loyalty testers operate online, she had to understand the other women in the group because each character has a different reason for doing the job.
Love in the age of screenshots is complicated
At its core, The Loyalty Game feels like a story about what modern relationships have become when trust is no longer enough.
Before, suspicion could stay between two people. Now, it can become a transaction. Someone can be hired. A conversation can be staged. Proof can arrive as a screenshot. Betrayal can be turned into evidence, and evidence can be sent in a chat bubble.
There is more danger ahead
Since this is only the first episode, it is still too early to say where The Loyalty Game will go. There are 13 more episodes to uncover what Ben is really hiding, what Ana will do with her suspicions, and how deeply the loyalty testers will become involved in their lives.
The Loyalty Game does not feel like a show interested in heroes and villains. Based on the pilot, almost everyone seems to be hiding something, needing something, or doing something they may later regret.
The Loyalty Game premieres exclusively on Prime Video on July 3 in the Philippines and in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.
