FPJ's Ang Probinsyano (transl. The Man from the Province / The Provincial Man), also known as Brothers, is a 2015 Philippine action drama television series based on the 1997 film Ang Probinsyano, which starred Fernando Poe Jr.. The series stars an ensemble cast, which is led by Coco Martin in the title role.^[4] It is the longest-running action drama series on Philippine television.^[5] On May 10, 2019, Netflix has uploaded Season 1 with 50 episodes.^[6]

Ang Probinsyano has four story arcs. Book 1, which contained the first and second seasons, ran from its debut on September 28, 2015 to May 24, 2017. Book 2 contains the series' third and fourth season which aired from May 25, 2017 to March 14, 2018.^[7][8] Book 3 is comprosed of the series' fifth and sixth season and focused on the larger political drama, which involved the President and Vice President of the Philippines and ran from March 15, 2018 to April 5, 2019^[9] Book 4 focuses on the lives of the Vendetta as they are given pardon and is now trying to fit themselves in society once again by serving the country under the care and appointment of President Oscar Hidalgo. It debuted on April 8, 2019.

The first season of Ang Probinsyano chronicles around the lives of Ricardo Dalisay and Dominador de Leon, identical twins who were separated during childhood. Their lives soon intertwine once again when Dominador was killed during a mission in stopping a human-trafficking syndicate. Ricardo must now take the identity of his brother and finish the mission he started, while also learning more about his biological family. During his mission, Ricardo faces various obstacles in his path in finding justice. One of his biggest encounters is the Tuazon family, a rich philanthropist family to the public, but a family of drug lords and human-trafficking syndicate leader in their personal lives.

The second season Ang Probinsyano revolves around Cardo's quest to seek justice for the death of his brother, Ador. In his search for justice, Cardo uncovers the criminal empire of the Tuazons, and in the process finds out about their involvement in the demise of his father, brother and sister-in-law.

The third season of Ang Probinsyano is about Ricardo Dalisay, in his married life and how he is battling the rebels. As he finished his mission against the drug and human-trafficking syndicates, he continues his next mission in putting a stop to the illegal activities in the countries. He goes undercover and goes into a group called Pulang Araw, a rebel group fighting for rights. During his mission, he encounters several activities that put him on the nation's wanted list once again.

The fourth season of Ang Probinsyano deals with the looming mid-year elections in the Philippines, where Senator Mateo F. De Silva and Director Renato Hipolito are both jockeying for the top spot at the polls in order to secure the Senate Presidency and parlay such victory into a career as the President of the Philippines. Both De Silva and Hipolito relentlessly hunt down Cardo and the remnants of Pulang Araw in order to appeal to the voters. De Silva funds his campaign with the aid of his new-found ally, Don Emilio Syquia, through their drug-trading business. With the remaining members of Pulang Araw and his allies in prison, Cardo forms the vigilante group Vendetta to combat corruption in the Philippines. However, with the elections drawing nearer, both De Silva and Hipolito continue to malign the name of Vendetta through Luis "Buwaya" Mangubat and Homer "Alakdan" Adlawan's Kamandag, respectively, each performing acts of terrorism which are blamed on Vendetta. Elsewhere, Cardo's marriage to Alyana is also put to the test as she is pursued by her new boss, Marco Cabrera.

The fifth season of Ang Probinsyano chronicles Cardo and Vendetta's struggle against corruption in the larger Philippine political arena. Vendetta not only has to fight the Renato Hipolito-backed terrorist group Kamandag, they are also up against a gun-running ring operated by the Vice President of the Philippines, Lucas Cabrera.

Hipolito and Cabrera, beyond being from the same political party have joined forces to combat Vendetta and to secure for Hipolito the top spot in the mid-year senatorial elections. Hipolito intends to use the top senatorial spot to catapult him to the presidency in the next presidential elections. Cabrera, on the other hand, wants the Senate to be dominated by his partymates, with Hipolito leading the charge as Senate President, in order to ensure that Cabrera will win the presidency in the next national elections unaware of Hipolito's intent to double-cross him to secure the presidency for himself.

The sixth season of Ang Probinsyano follows Cardo and Vendetta's continued struggle against Lucas Cabrera, now President of the Philippines and Renato Hipolito. After rescuing the incumbent President Oscar Hidalgo from an assassination plot intended to supplant him as president, Vendetta must now find a way to restore Hidalgo back to the Presidency.

Elsewhere, Vendetta will also have to deal with Don Emilio Syquia who has reemerged from hiding. Now going by the name Señor Gustavo Torralba, his newfound criminal empire enjoys the protection of the Cabrera administration through the auspices of Hipolito.

As Vendetta makes its way back to Manila, their path will cross with the baglady of the Cabrera administration, Lily Ann Cortez (Lorna Tolentino). Lily plans on making the conflict between Vendetta and the Cabrera Administration more direct and emerge with the spoils from whoever it is left standing. Lily secretly pits the Vendetta and the president against each other, resulting to the death of Cabrera and Hipolito getting seriously wounded. Hipolito, with the help of Lily goes into hiding and vows to exact revenge against Vendetta. Vendetta emerges victorious and surrendered to the authorities soon after with the help of the real, now reinstated President Oscar Hidalgo.

The seventh season of Ang Probinsyano sees the culmination of Vendetta's arduous struggle against the corrupt Cabrera administration.

The whole country celebrates the victory of Vendetta and the reinstating of Hidalgo back to his rightful post. After narrating his experience with the Vendetta and their true intent for the welfare of the country to the mass media and the public, Hidalgo wastes no time prosecuting Cabrera's remaining allies and making good on his promise to improve the condition of the country, seeing first hand what the people below experience. Thereafter, Hidalgo grants presidential pardon to the members of Vendetta and creates a special task force to be led by Cardo in order to combat criminality in the country.

But with Vendetta emerging victorious in its drawn out battle with Cabrera, Lily has amassed sufficient clout with the now restored Hidalgo and the members of Vendetta and intends to cash in on this debt of gratitude by keeping a close connection with the latter to mask her criminal activities.

Hipolito, on the other hand, having survived the skirmish that killed Cabrera also through help of Lily, intends on getting revenge and subjecting the Philippines to widespread fear under his heel. Lily will again try to pit Hipolito and the Hidalgo administration against each other with the aim of veiling her own illicit designs.

ABS-CBN president and CEO Charo Santos-Concio touted the creation of an action-drama series which particularly aims to give importance to the police force in an effort to help them "regain the love and respect of the people". Coco Martin, who would be later named as the series' lead actor, was involved in the production shoot for the series, who proposed that the production team create a television adaptation of Fernando Poe Jr. film Ang Probinsyano. Martin reasons that he and his grandmother enjoyed watching films of the action star while Martin grew up. The widow of Fernando Poe Jr., Susan Roces reportedly allowed the production team to adopt her late spouse's film.^[47]

Ang Probinsyano is not a remake of the 1997 film of the same name. It was made to be run for months to be more suitable for teleserye viewers.^[48]

The title of the original film was inspired from the term "pulis patola" which is occasionally used to tease newbie police officers. Since patola, or cucumber of the genus Luffa, is usually grown in the provinces outside urban areas such as Manila, the title Ang Probinsyano was decided to be the title of the 1997 film,^[48] which would be later adapted into the 2015 telenovela.

For the role of leading lady, singer-actress Angeline Quinto was supposedly part of the main cast to play the role of Lily, an original character yet different role. Due to her conflicting schedules, however, she was later pulled out from the cast.^{[49][50][51][52]} Quinto was replaced by Maja Salvador, who played the role of Glen. This was Salvador's reunion project with Coco Martin four years after Minsan Lang Kita Iibigin.

On August 4, 2016,^[53] Maja Salvador left the series due to expiration of her contract with Dreamscape and numerous prior commitments (including the then-upcoming drama, Wildflower). Yassi Pressman replaced Salvador as Martin's new love interest and joined the cast in the same month, playing the role of Alyana Arevalo.^[11]

In May 2017, Simon Pineda left the series to focus on his studies and numerous prior commitments (including the filming of then-upcoming movies, Loving in Tandem and Ang Panday as well as his conflicts with Your Face Sounds Familiar Kids Season 2 and The Kids' Choice).^[29] To replace Pineda, Enzo Pejolero joined the cast in the following episodes, playing the role of Dexter.

In November 2017, Angeline Quinto finally joined the cast as a guest character, playing the role of Regine. Her character lasted until early February 2018.^[54]

On March 5, 2018, it was announced that Rowell Santiago, Edu Manzano, Dawn Zulueta and Alice Dixson will be the new additions to the series.^[9] Santiago will play the President for the second-time since the hit teleserye "Tanging Yaman" in 2010.^[55] On the other hand, Manzano is cast as Vice President Lucas Cabrera. Zulueta and Dixson will play the roles of First Lady Marissa Hidalgo and Second Lady Catherine Cabrera, respectively. Joining them are JC Santos (who previously guested on the show as the young Emilio Syquia)^[15] as Marco Cabrera and Mark Anthony Fernandez as Congressman Brandon Cabrera.

On September 13, 2019, Coco Martin confirmed that he is in negotiations with Hollywood actors who can guest in the series.^[56]

FPJ's Ang Probinsyano was initially to air until 2017 due to its action scenes, high ratings and "real life lessons" which were well received by the audience. The series has also been known to educate its viewers about Philippine laws and issues.^[63]

On April 21, 2017, ABS-CBN announced that the action drama had officially been extended until January 2018.^[64] The series celebrated its second anniversary on September 28, 2017.

Due to the show's consistently high ratings, it went past its January 2018 extension and is set to run until June 2018.^[65] With the show maintaining its high ratings, the show was yet again extended up to September 2018, at which point the series will be celebrating its third anniversary.^[66]

On July 4, 2018, amid reports that the show was ending in September and will be replaced by the Judy Ann Santos-starrer "Starla",^[67] ABS-CBN's Head of Corporate Communication Kane Errol Choa clarified that the show will not be ending any time soon.^[68] Choa cited that Martin and his team of writers are "enjoying the process of coming up with creative ideas to make the story more compelling, as well as collaborating with the cast and the production team" on top of the continued high ratings the show registers. As to when the show is ending, cast member Malou Crisologo stated that the show was extended but that the management did not state until when the extension shall run.^[69]

The shows numerous extensions has become the subject of memes and jokes. Coco Martin himself has acknowledged the numerous memes and jokes and posted his own meme stating that the show is set to end in September 2048.^[70]

On July 29, 2016, the MTRCB sent a summons to the producers, writers and directors of the show over a scene in its July 25, 2016 episode with "sexually suggestive themes".^[71]

The scene in question sees Ella (Vice Ganda) having a hard time changing a flat tire in the rain, when Cardo pulls over to help out. In the course of the scene, double entendres are allegedly used in the dialogue between the characters.

The MTRCB also noted that although the episode showed an apt SPG (Strong Parental Guidance) rating, pursuant to MTRCB Memorandum Circular No. 12-2011, said episode did not contain the appropriate descriptor "SEX" despite the presence of what may be considered 'sexually suggestive' shots in the subject depiction.

A conference was held on August 2, 2016 wherein Malu Sevilla (director), Eileen Garcia (executive producer), Dagang Vilbar (producer), Elaine Songco (network MTRCB coordinator) and John Joseph Tuason (episode writer) attended. MTRCB Chairman Eugenio Villareal noted that the summoned personnel manifested that they had no intention to offend anyone in regard to the subject scene; and they believe that there is room for improvement for the program as regards sensitivity to particular types of audience, for instance, the young and women.

Villareal likewise said that they took note of the show's "self-regulatory resolution" to fight objectification and depict scenes instead where the "dignity of the human person is upheld."

Originally, Pulang Araw held camp at Mt. Arayat until SAF Troopers raided said camp, forcing them to escape to the fictional Mt. Karagao.

Behind the scenes, the show began removing all references to the Municipality of Arayat, Pampanga, beginning with its July 18, 2017 episode. However, despite the scrubbing of all mention to Arayat, on July 21, 2017, the Municipal Council of Arayat, Pampanga forwarded a Resolution to the Provincial Board of Pampanga demanding that the show's producers apologize for depicting Arayat “as a haven and breeding ground for terrorists and hoodlums", said its Municipal Mayor Emmanuel Alejandro. The Resolution also “calls for a hearing and to make ABS-CBN apologize for the wrong impressions it created and to correct these [in the long-running telenovela]”.^[72] The Municipality of Arayat, also contemplated to file charges of libel against ABS-CBN for the show's "damaging" portrayal of the town.^[73]

The show's producers reasoned that Arayat was only used in the show nominally and the production has never shot an actual scene in Arayat. The producers said further that there was no intention to portray Arayat in a bad light; that a disclaimer was issued at the beginning of each episode of the show, stating that the characters, incidents and organizations depicted there were purely fictitious and bore no resemblance to actual people and events. ABS-CBN has since apologized to the Municipality of Arayat.^[72]

Mayor Alejandrino also directed ire at former Pampanga Governors Mark Lapid and Lito Lapid for their participation in the storyline which taints the reputation of the town and province they once served. Coco Martin, the show's lead is also a native of Pampanga, hailing from San Fernando.^[73]

Alejandrino said that the storyline the show is running is a sensitive topic in Arayat, which used to be a bastion for socialist and communist movements from the pre-World War II years up to the 1990s.^[72] Alejandrino further said that contrary to what has been the reaction online to the course of action taken by the Municipality, they are not overreacting^[74] and that they are only trying to protect the town's image, which has a lucrative tourist market.

The show's production team was called out online by fans of the spouses Dingdong Dantes and Marian Rivera over the alleged unauthorized usage of the spouses' family pictures.^[75] The controversy first began gaining steam when a twitter fan site dedicated to the spouse' daughter Zia, ZiaDantesFanSite‏ posted a video with the caption “Zia’s photo was unethically used by ‘Ang Probinsyano’ in Nov 2017. In last night's episode, [Dingdong and Marian] DongYan's photo was edited and used again by the show. Were the photos of Dingdong, Marian and Zia used [and] edited without permission? Dear Ang Probinsyano, strike two na po kayo ah.” which was quickly shared by other users and from which Dantes possibly gained knowledge of such usage.

Dantes' response to the controversy was posted on his Facebook account^[76] "Courtesy and fair practice must always be observed especially in an established industry like ours. But whether or not it is done within the entertainment sector, we should always be reminded of the basic etiquette for online photo use and sharing that includes asking permission and/or citing sources. I do hope that this won't happen again to anyone." he wrote. In the same post, Dantes also shared an excerpt of his letter to the production team dated August 11, 2018 which read “I appreciate that you found artistic inspiration from the original photos. Unfortunately, there is the inescapable consequence that legal and moral rights were violated here. And as you may very well be aware of, established industry practice is against such act as it amounts to disrespect. Worst of all, as a father and husband, I cannot help but feel offended and deeply hurt by such actions, which happened not just once, but twice. Basic rules of courtesy in this case dictate that you first secure permission from the photographer and my Family.”^[77]

On August 14, 2018, the production team of FPJ's Ang Probinsyano released a statement apologizing to Dantes and his family.^[78] The statement explained that the production team hired a third-party contractor to create the props for the show, of which they were neither aware that the photograph belonged to Dantes nor was it intended to disrespect or offend Dantes and his family.

The producers added that they have already launched an investigation "to prevent a similar incident from happening in the future." Alice Dixson, likewise offered her apology to Dantes.^[79]

Despite Philippine National Police Chief Oscar Albayalde being a fan of Ang Probinsyano, he criticized the portrayal of the PNP Chief Terante. He decried the character of Terante being a power-hungry and corrupt. The PNP also warned the 'illegal' use of the uniform and police vehicles. He talked to MTRCB about it. Coco Martin apologized with the issue and despite Grace Poe defending the show, MTRCB will investigate the matter. Senator Panfilo Lacson also criticized the series about PNP Chief Terante's physique, contrary to his 34-inch waist only rule during his leadership of the police force. Both DILG secretary Eduardo Año and DILG assistant secretary Jonathan Malaya are also disappointed on the entire series for demoralizing the PNP as they planned to demand a case against the producers of the show by any legal means. Coco Martin, Ang Probinsyano's creatives and ABS-CBN and Dreamscape execs and DILG met up, and repaired the issue. Coco himself went and met with Albayalde, and signed MOU's that PNP will continue supporting them, in exchange of better recognition of PNP's effort. But the different film guilds and CHR criticized PNP's reaction.

The Public Attorney's Office under Persida Rueda-Acosta wanted to hear Ang Probinsyano's creative team. They criticized the representation of a PAO lawyer that is a coward and intimidated by Cabrera's power. Acosta denied the representation.

The following is a list of songs featured in FPJ's Ang Probinsyano.

FPJ's Ang Probinsyano is considered one of the most-watched telenovela in the Philippines, garnering the highest-rated pilot episode of all time with 41.6% in 2015, and even received the highest peak nationwide rating of 46.7% on its 92nd episode in 2016.^[80] The series' record ratings stood for over two years until it was broken in the series' 782nd episode, having received a rating of 47.2%. The series is well received by the public due to its action sequences, life lessons and crime prevention tips.

Coco Martin was given a certificate of appreciation for his favorable portrayal as a highly dedicated and responsible CIDG Police officer in FPJ's Ang Probinsyano given in the 63rd Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) Founding Anniversary.^[83]

The show has received high praise from former Interior and Local Government Secretary Ismael Sueno who stated that the police force should make an example of the lead character Cardo.