Isla Uling

The place is actually named Sitio Pulo and is said to be well-known in the 80's with actors like Tirso Cruz III flocking to its clean shores to escape from hot, mad Manila, as mentioned in Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros' blog. Now it has become Isla Uling (literally means "charcoal island") because of its people's means of living. They produce coal out of the garbage and waste, coming from different parts of Metro Manila, that fill its surrounding sea.

An Pasko ni Intoy/Intoy's Christmas

Excerpt from An Pasko ni Intoy/Intoy's Christmas

An Pasko ni Intoy/Intoy's Christmas is a 30-minute video documentary that portrays the bitter-sweet Christmas of a child-laborer in a remote, swampy community in Leyte. I directed/produced this video together with my classmate Em Hidalgo for our production thesis. It was awarded Best Thesis (Docu Category) in our batch. It has also won awards outside our school such as Best Short Film in the Student Catholic Mass Media Awards 2008, 2nd place Docu Category in the 20th Cultural Center of the Philippines Independent Film and Video Competition, and Best Documentary in the 10th Ateneo Video Open.

It was soo fun doing this film. We immersed in the community for almost a month during our Christmas break. We took hour long walks with the kids to their school. We had to learn to pee in makeshift toilets, walk on knee-deep mud, survive without electricity, ride a canoe, and fear about it getting capsized, us drowning and our all-borrowed equipment getting wet. We also had to take a 2-hour motor boat ride to the town proper and back every two days just to charge our camera's batteries.

But in exchange of these little sacrifices, we feasted over fresh seafood and had regular tuba-drinking session with the locals. The children also gave us free paddling-a-canoe tutorial (though we never learned). Here are the behind the scene photos:


R-L: Intoy, the docu's main subject, and his buddy Ian


My thesis partner Em


Em directing our camera man Rayg


Rayg shooting Intoy's brother Kim-kim carrying fronds of nipa palm


Inday. She is the only female kid in the community


And finally, that is me, marvelling at the place

I wish to thank these people who made significant contributions to the production of this film:
Ditsi Carolino for lending us her Sony TRV900, Senheisser boom mic, tripod, the financial aid, and for all the advicing; Ms. Ervina Espina for translating the film from Waray-waray to English; Kuya Benj for the free technical support; Rayg, for all the free services; Renei, Kets, Valen, Flau, Emae, Mich, and Trix for the moral and immoral support; and of course the locals of Sitio Palanas, Brgy. Butason, Tabango, Leyte.

Portraits of the Sumilao Marchers

Philippines is one of the countries that has the most problematic agrarian reform program. For over decades that this was implemented, lands that were supposed to be distributed to the farmers remain in the hands of the landlords. These landlords always find a way to circumvent the law. Most of them would guard their land with heavily armed men to keep the farmers away. While others would do tactics such as apply to convert their land into an industrial land despite it being categorized as prime agricultural land. This is the case of the Sumilao marchers.

The Sumilao marchers are these farmers from Sumilao, Bukidnon who walked from their town to the Malacanang Palace in Manila hoping to meet the president and ask her to revoke the conversion order that was issued to their land. Besides being a prime irrigated land which their ancestors had tilled for years, for them this land is holy. The Sumilao farmers belong to a tribe called Higaonon and this is where they conduct their rituals.

And so they they travelled on foot 1,700 kilometres for more than two months to regain this land that rightfully belongs to them.

Pasdong, Village of the Ibaloi Tribe of Benguet (3 of 3)

Pasdong is 4 to 6-hour jeepney ride away from the Baguio City proper. It actually takes lesser time to get there thru a private vehicle. A jeepney only has to make several detours, for instance to a hardware or a grocery store, besides the usual stops to pick-up passengers, because it also serves as the community's FedEx. Since the village is remote and the trips are rare, the locals would ask the driver to get them something from the city, or deliver something to somewhere. And to compensate for the cost of the gasoline, as the trip is long ang mostly uphill, the jeepney has to be as jampacked as it can be.

The village from afar. The place is found at the foot of and between mountains and hills.


An icy cold stream runs along the barangay


Which explains the presence of several hanging bridges in the place (I was excited to see a lot of them especially that I had only seen them in films. It was my first time to actually cross an authentic hanging bridge.)


Most of the locals are organic farmers who use unprocessed chicken dung as fertilizer which according to one of our companions, Ramon Mapa, the Executive Director of PILCD, has its own downside. The acid coming from the chicken dung makes the land infertile after a while.

Side view of the barrio chapel. I like its windows. It's the style of the windows of most houses in Benguet as well as in Ifugao. They're intentionally small to keep their houses warm.

Portraits of the Ibalois of Pasdong:

Pasdong, Village of the Ibaloi Tribe of Benguet (2 of 3)

These two kids kept on tailing me while we were in Pasdong. They were probably amazed with the DSLR I was always carrying around my neck. They loved to pose for the cam and how they laughed whenever I showed them their photos. But unlike the other kids in the village, these two kids would not talk to me. All I'd hear from them were their soft laughters. They also seemed aloof from the rest of the kids. Their looks are quite unique, as well. I was told by a companion that theirs is the typical Ibaloi features.

The first photo was taken the day we arrived. The second photo was taken the following day.

Pasdong, Village of the Ibalois (1 of 3)

After days of being confined in an office editing an AVP, I was itching to get somewhere else. Since I got into a serious video editing work, I have always believed I'm never going to be a good editor. My impatience and love for the sun and the outdoors will always steer my concentration away from my work. So when my friend, Lem, told me he has a shoot somewhere in Baguio and he was leaving in a few hours, I voluntered to tag along even if it meant leaving a lot of work behind.

The day was fine when we reached Baguio. After meeting our companions who mostly worked for PILCD (People's Initiative for Learning and Community Development) - an NGO based in the city - we went straight to the jeepney terminal to catch the only trip to our destination that day. We were off to Brgy. Pasdong in the town of Atok, Benguet.

To get the full view of Benguet, Lem and I decided to take the top load. We travelled through the thick fog. It was heaven!


The narrow, winding and uphill road added more thrill to our trip. Some parts of it were unpaved, especially those that run along communities were there were less registered voters. Concreting the roads according to our companions is political. If you want to see paved roads, you go to the barangay where the town Mayor resides.

Tribute to a Farmer-Leader

Here's a short video tribute for Reneto "Ka Rene" Penas that Ditsi Carolino and I made a few days after he was murdered. Ka Rene was the leader of the Sumilao farmers who walked from Mindanao to Manila to "reclaim" the land awarded to them thru the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

Pag-alala kay Ka Rene 1/2

Pag-alala kay Ka Rene 2/2

I first met Ka Rene when I assisted Ditsi in shooting their march while they were in the Bicol area. He was cheerful but a strict and disciplined leader and his enthusiasm was contagious. Despite often wearing a brief over his head (to sun-dry it) during the march, his co-farmers respected and followed his orders.

He was a funny man. I remember him - when I visited them at their camp in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform - telling me that he needed to go to Eunilane to buy some briefs. He said, while comically scratching his head, that his wife sent him his clothes from Bukidnon but she failed to include his underwears.

The last time I saw him was during the Red Carpet screening of Ditsi's film Lupang Hinarang. He asked me, as he always did everytime we met, why he no longer saw me in their protests. I told him I was helping in the editing of Lupang Hinarang. Then I asked, pointing to Diether Ocampo who was posing by the photo-op wall, if he already had pictures with the celebrities who were present. He said yes. I joked, "but not with me yet." And it was the last time I saw him laugh.

This video was shown during the vigil at the Dela Stradda Chapel along Katipunan Ave. and before the funeral march in Sumilao. The clips in the video are from Lem dela Cruz's footage of the Banasi farmer's march from Bicol to Manila which was also led by Ka Rene. Some are excerpts from Lupang Hinarang.