SINE CABOLOAN

Anacbanua

( The Child of the Sun )

When the young man assembles his dogs and begins the long descent after the fruitless chase he sees a wonder of wonders. Siblaw Taraw lake becomes alive with a big group of bathers. The young hunter sees the celestial maidens remove their wings by the shore and plunge into the lake. Richard sees a few more celestial maidens fly down from the sky.

Suddenly, the young man's lead dog comes to him with a pair of wings in his mouth. With a quick gesture, the young hunter retrieves the wings and hurriedly conceals them in his pasiking.(backpack)

In a while, the leader of the celestial maidens comes ashore and as if by command, the other bathers follow suit. Hand in hand, they begin to sing and dance around  the lake.

In a while, the young man sees a commotion in the lake as the celestial maidens took their wings and flew back to the sky as many birds in flight. The rustling and  flapping of wings in the air could be heard until everything became quiet again.

Suddenly, the young man sees one nude bather running along the shore crying,“My wings, my wings!”

From behind the trees the young hunter emerges and the nude bather was taken aback and squats to hide her nudity. The young man gathers some leaves and gives them to the young lady to cover her body.

When the young hunter points to town and made signs for the celestial maiden to follow, the young woman readily understands and follows.

Several years have passed and one day while the celestial maiden was weaving inside her house and her two sons were already in their teens, the boys in play overturns a flat stone in the ator. Underneath they discover a strange object eaten by white ants  at various places. The two boys show the discovery to their mother and the celestial maiden recognizes her lost wings.

With great care and jealousy, the celestial maiden patches up the parts damaged by the termites. Later in the afternoon before her husband arrives from the hunt, she tells her two sons  that she was now going to leave them. “Tell your father that I have flown to heaven on my wings which he has stolen." The boys cry and asks her to take them with her. The celestial maiden finally flies back to the skyworld alone.

The young man awakens from his dream.

Richard ( the hunter in the dream ), an emerging  Filipino-American visual artist who was born in a Pangasinan town whose name he does not remember, returns to the Philippines to look for his long lost mother Celeste Carungay with only an old picture and an old name of a club to guide him in his search. While looking for his mother, Richard is also passionately working on a digital artwork about a celestial maiden leading a child out of a burning postmodern metropolis.

He comes to Ermita district in Manila to inquire from his mother’s former colleagues in the prostitution business during the late seventies to early eighties. The former prostitution district of Manila has changed and most of his mother’s colleagues were gone.

He meets a mother with her baby begging for money among passersby in an alley. He inquires on the address he is searching for and the  mother points towards the direction of the adjacent street.

He reaches the address he is looking for but only finds an old abandoned building with nobody around.

The following morning, while walking along a corner of Mabini Street in Ermita, the mother he has encountered yesterday together with a twelve-year old male child announces a hold-up pointing a fan knife to Richard’s neck. Richard fights back but the male child overpowers him and the mother stabs him. The two thief runs away  taking Richard’s backpack containing important items like his laptop computer, passport, and the address where he could inquire about his long lost mother.

Wounded, Richard is able to reach a nearby police station and report about the incident that just took place. Suddenly, he loses consciousness and collapses on the floor of the police station.

The next morning, Richard awakens in a hospital room and sees the police officer who assisted him yesterday sitting by his side. The kindhearted policewoman advises Richard to rest and assures him that together with her colleagues they are searching for the thieves who took his bag.

The following day, we see Richard wake up alone in a bed in a  hospital ward.  He overhears an old couple conversing in the Pangasinan language near his bed. He understands their conversation because he is fluent in the language.

He rises painfully from his bed and walks to the bed of one of the  patients. He strikes a friendly conversation with the elderly patient and his wife. The patient Laki Itiw and his wife Bai Maring introduce themselves as residents of Calasiao town in Pangasinan. Richard reveals to the couple that he grew-up as a child in a Pangasinan town whose name he vaguely remembers until his mother decided to have him adopted to her American lover. In a few moments, we see the three of them talking animatedly in the Pangasinan language.

The following morning, the police officer pays a visit to Richard in the hospital. She announces that the criminals were caught on the streets of Ermita last night. She brings out Richard’s backpack and gives it to him. Richard opens the bag and sees that his laptop computer and digital camera were gone. His agitation turns to relief when he brings out a USB flash drive, a small notebook, and inside the notebook he brings out an old photograph of himself as a baby with his then young mother. He happily announces to the police officer that his USB flash drive containing his digital artworks was not stolen and the small notebook containing important addresses including that of his missing mother was also not stolen. He tells the police officer he will buy a new laptop computer as soon as his wounds heal. The officer asks if Richard would press for charges against the thieves. Richard tells her he will not. He requests that they be brought out of jail after being reformed by the government authorities.

A week passes by and when his wounds have healed Richard continues his search for his missing mother in the Ermita district.

Richard returns to the old abandoned building in one of the streets of the Ermita district. He sees a charming middle-aged woman discussing plans with an architect on renovating the old building to convert it into a shop which she will manage.  Richard introduces  himself to the woman and inquires if the old building is the former club where his mother ( a.k.a. Celina ) worked. He shows an old photograph of his mother and the woman (Tessie) who happens to be a former colleague of his mother recognizes her.

Tessie and Richard converse in a coffee shop. Tessie reveals that the real name of the woman in the picture is Celeste Carungay from Pangasinan. Richard finally learns the real name of his missing mother and he becomes emotional. She refers Richard to his mother’s best friend (Zeny) living in a slum district in Pasay City.  

Richard meets Zeny, a woman from Pangasinan.  Zeny reveals that when Celeste had him adopted to her Americam lover when he was six years old, Celeste was pregnant with her second baby who was named Rolando. Richard inquires if his younger brother is still alive. Zeny says yes. She advises the young man to look for his younger brother in a slum district in Sta. Mesa, Manila to find out where he can find their mother. Again, Richard becomes emotional due to the discovery that he has a long lost younger brother.

The next day, Richard arrives in a slum community where his brother supposedly resides. He witnesses a stand off between the residents and government forces who will demolish the homes. In a few moments violence erupts as the residents attack the authorities who start to demolish a few homes. Richard is forced to leave the site.

The following morning, Richard returns to the community and sees the concrete houses in the former slum district reduced to rubble. Two young boys who are brothers  scavenging scraps of metal tell him that the area had been demolished to give way to a giant casino building. They reveal further that former residents of the place were relocated to Montalban (Rodriguez), Rizal.

Richard visits the relocation site of the former residents in Montalban and meets his brother’s neighbors who advises him that Rolando ( his younger brother ) went back home to Bayambang in Pangasinan with his wife and kids.  Richard becomes excited to learn that Bayambang is the name of the long lost hometown where he grew up as a young child.

Richard travels to Bayambang, the hometown whose name he vaguely remembers and finally reunites with his long lost  relatives in their old small house beside the great Agno River in Barangay Pogo. The first person he meets in a compound consisting of ten families is Vicente who happens to be his cousin. The second person he meets is Rita who is the mother of Vicente.  We can see the poverty amongst the homes in the compound.

Rita, his mother’s half sister reveals to Richard that his brother Rolando became estranged with his first wife, a Tagalog and has remarried a young lady in Barangay Quintong in San Carlos City, Pangasinan.

Rita brings Richard to the ricefields and introduces him to all their relatives and their respective families while they are all busy harvesting rice grains from their field. Rita reveals to Richard that their ancestors up to her mother’s generation used to be kasamak (tenant farmers) as long as she can remember. Rita reveals further that when his mother Celeste had left her old job, she became very successful in a modest business she founded. With her earnings she bought two hectares of land for her landless half brothers and half sisters in Pogo. The land used to be a part of the farm their ancestors used to own and till a long time ago.

By the late afternoon, Rita, Richard and few of Rita’s grandchildren take a stroll beside the banks of the great Agno River which is just beside their farm. Rita reveals to Richard that the old man from San Carlos City who got Celeste pregnant when she was a teenager and who happens to be Richard’s father is believed to have come from the family line of the Pangasinan folk hero Juan Palaris ( Boleg nen Palaripar ). Rita reveals that Richard has a hero’s blood running in his veins.

The following day, Richard asks his cousin Vicente to hire a vehicle in their neighbor. Vicente drives the car and the two characters   travel to San Carlos City. Richard learns that his cousin Vicente is a former overseas worker from the Middle East who is currently tending their small piece of farmland in Bayambang.

They arrive in Barangay Quintong and meet the family of his brother’s wife. Other than farming, Richard learns that the extended family are also small merchant traders making bamboo handicrafts which they sell in many towns within and outside the Pangasinan region as viajeros in their  cattle caravans.

Richard learns that his brother Rolando together with his young wife (Marissa Pagsolingan), three children, and relatives had left their barrio two days ago to sell their wares in Sta.Barbara and nearby towns. One of Marissa’s sisters (Ester) calls her but Marissa’s mobile phone is not functioning. Ester calls his brother Romulo’s mobile phone and inquires where is their location. Romulo confirms that the caravan is in Manaoag town selling their wares and conducting a pilgrimage to the Our Lady of Manaoag Shrine.

The next morning, Richard and Vicente travel to the famous pilgrimage town of Manaoag.

Upon entering the Church, Richard becomes enamored by the Nuestra Senora del Rosario or Our Lady of Manaoag. Richard undergoes an intense mystical experience.

Vicente awakens Richard from his reverie and brings him to two cattle caravans parked outside of the church compound. Richard and Vicente approach the group inside the caravan. Richard sees an old woman performing a bone-setting procedure ( ilot ) on a child inside one of the caravans.

When the old woman is done with the ilot,  Richard introduces himself and inquires about his brother Rolando. The leader of the group ( Romulo) who is Marissa’s eldest brother reveals that Rolando and Marissa together with another brother (Adit) decided to go on a separate course which is to market their wares in the town of San Fabian and nearby towns. Romulo reveals that Marissa and Rolando decided to travel  to another direction only this morning after attending mass in the church. Romulo reveals further that his group is going to stay in Manaoag for one more day to sell their wares and from then on their caravan will move eastward to the towns of Binalonan, Asinggan, Tayug and other Eastern Pangasinan towns. He adds that they will journey to Manila after marketing their wares in these Eastern Pangasinan towns. Romulo calls the mobile phone of Marissa but it can not be contacted.

Richard and Vicente travel to San Fabian but they fail to spot a group of cattle caravan along the highway. At the highway junction that splits the highway into two directions, one is the road leading northward going to La Union, Baguio City and other Northern Luzon provinces and the other is westward leading to the commercial center that is Dagupan City and other coastal towns of Western Pangasinan, they inquire from a mechanic in a vulcanizing shop if he has spotted a small group of cattle caravan passing by the road this morning. The mechanic says he has not seen any group of cattle caravans during the day.

At the crossroads uncertain which direction Rolando’s group have gone, Richard decides they travel to the direction leading westward going to Dagupan City.

In the mid-afternoon, Richard and Vicente drive farther into the town of Mangaldan until they arrive in Dagupan City by late afternoon and did not spot a group of cattle caravan along the highway. The two decide to spend their evening in a small resort hotel beside the Tondaligan Beach.

The following day, Vicente and Richard continue their search for the cattle caravan in the coastal towns of Binmaley, Lingayen, Labrador and Sual. They fail to spot any cattle caravan along the road until they arrive in Sual by the late afternoon.  They stop infront of  a bar along the highway and they ask a charming middle-aged lady if she has seen a group of cattle caravans pass by the highway. The lady naming Dolores  says she has seen a group pass by the road after lunchtime of today. Richard becomes hopeful because he is certain that they have followed the right track leading to his brother Rolando. Although it is already dusk, Richard insists they continue searching but Vicente advises him they are already tired and they continue their search tomorrow morning.

They decide to spend their evening drinking beer and listening to the sultry middle-aged Dolores sing a jazz-blues arrangement of the popular Pangasinan folk serenade Malinac Lay Labi in the bar along the national highway in Sual. Richard is enamored by Dolores’s performance.

After singing, Dolores who happens to be the owner and manager of the bar and who was a former G.R.O. in Olongapo City spends time chatting with the two men in their table. She introduces her 20-year old adopted daughter Aurora to the two guests who also joins them on the table.

Around midnight, Richard has sexual intercourse with Dolores in one of the rented rooms in Dolores’s resort-bar beside the sea.

The next morning, Richard and his driver Vicente travel farther into the coastal towns of Alaminos and Bani searching for a group of cattle caravans. When they reach the town of Anda, they spot two cattle caravans along the coastal highway.

Richard finally meets his long lost younger brother Rolando and reunites with him and his growing family.

Rolando reveals to Richard that they are not just going to Bolinao to sell their wares but he would like to see their mother Celeste because she is celebrating her 50th birthday tomorrow.

Rolando reveals to Richard of a rich widowed man,  Ponciano Caigas from Bolinao town  whom their mother Celeste married more than ten years ago. Rolando reveals to Richard that their mother used to visit them frequently in Bayambang but reveals further that strangely he has not heard from her during these past three years.

The next morning, Richard joins the cattle caravan as they travel to the coastal town of Bolinao. Rolando and Richard search for the house of Ponciano, their mother’s late husband but finds out from the neighbors that the residents of the ancestral house had immigrated to the U.S.

Richard together with the cattle caravan spend the latter part of the day beside the historic Cape Bolinao lighthouse tower in Punta Piedra Point. Rolando and  Richard relive their childhood days. Rolando reveals that their mother was a bastard child in their big family in Bayambang. He adds that their mother was always supportive of her brothers and sisters who were poor. He also reveals that their mother was successfully running a modest business enterprise in Bolinao during the last time she heard from her. Richard asks Rolando if their mother Celeste has completely forgotten him. Rolando reveals to his brother that,”Agda ka pinulyanan nen Ina. Lanang to kan nununuten.” ( Our mother did not really forsake you. You are always in her mind.) Rolando reveals further to Richard that starting in the early 90’s, their mother started to write letters to Richard’s adopted father in the U.S. and inquired about her son. But there wasn’t any reply from her former lover.

Richard learns from Marissa that they have gone to the Our Lady of Manaoag Shrine to seek protection and guidance from the patroness as Rolando is bound to leave Pangasinan in a month’s time to work as an electrician in the Middle East. Marissa reveals further that their family in Barrio Quintong have become poorer. She adds they are indebted for life to bamboo handicrafts middlemen because of the high interests they force on the loans they get. She adds further that it is getting more difficult to market their bamboo handicrafts because of increasing plastic wares competition. Richard is saddened by the news. He gives his Rolando an envelope containing money as a financial support for his growing family.

The next morning when the caravan is about the leave the lighthouse, Rolando meets the headkeeper naming Pedro Cabansag. Rolando and Richard learn that Pedro used to be the helper of their mother’s late husband and is now the caretaker of his ancestral house in the poblacion.

Pedro brings Rolando and Richard to the ancestral house of their mother’s husband Mr. Caigas. Pedro reveals that the old man died five years ago. He narrates further that their mother stayed in the town after the old man’s death because she was managing her grocery store. One day, a middle-aged American linguist (Prof. Ronald Turner) who conducted fieldwork research on the Binu-Bolinao language of the town met their mother. He returned to the university in Baguio City where he taught after a year of fieldwork research in Bolinao and their mother came along with him.

Richard asks permission to inspect some of the personal belongings his mother left. He and Richard looks at old photographs of their then young mother with her lovers. They find an old picture of Richard as a very young child with their young mother. They asks permission from Pedro to take all the old pictures of their mother. The caretaker agrees.

The following morning, Richard and Rolando part ways but he promises to visit him in San Carlos City after he finishes his mission.

Richard travels alone to Baguio City and learns from the university where Prof.Turner taught that the linguist used to travel often in Barlig, Mountain Province to conduct fieldwork for his research on the town’s indigenous language.

Richard starts his journey towards Barlig. He arrives in the mountain town after a day of traveling in a bus. Inside a small restaurant, the local residents narrate stories about Prof. Turner and his lady companion (Celeste) who conducted regular hiking trips to the fabled Siblaw Taraw lake in the town.

When the rest of the restaurant’s crowd had left to go home, a resident ( Max Guting ) reveals something to Richard about the couple’s constant guide naming Jordan Kiwan. Max reveals that although Jordan was perceived to be a very good man by the entire Barlig community, he was investigated and questioned by the local police three years ago regarding the sudden disappearance of the couple in the forests of the town. Max then decides to bring Richard to Jordan’s village.

After hiking for more than two hours, Richard and Max arrive in a village. He meets the regular guide of Prof. Turner, Jordan Kiwan.

After dinner at the ator, Jordan Kiwan  reveals to Richard that one day the couple decided to go on a hike deeper into the forest near the Siblaw Taraw lake without him to accompany them. Jordan reveals further that they have never returned to town since that fateful day. Jordan reveals that after the police investigations more than a year ago, no one in Barlig really knew what happened to the couple whether they were abducted or murdered or had an accident during their hike in the forest. 

Richard hires Jordan to accompany him in his hiking trip to Siblaw Taraw lake on the following day. They arrive by the lake in the late afternoon and set up camp.

By night time beside the campfire after they have smoked a few leaves of cannabis, Jordan narrates to Richard the legend of the Siblaw Taraw lake which is the tale of the celestial maiden who descended to the fabled lake and became the wife of a young hunter.

Early in the morning while walking beside the crater lake, Richard sees an apparition of his mother as a celestial maiden he saw in his dreams. In a few moments, the vision disappears. He finds a white feather on the ground where his mother’s vision appeared. He takes the feather and keeps it.

Back in Bontoc in Mountain Province inside an internet cafe, Richard chats to his Filipino-American girlfriend in the United States. He reveals to her he had found his long lost mother. Through the Internet, Richard sends his girlfriend a copy of the digital artwork he was able finish during his stay in Mt.Province. It is the about the celestial maiden leading a child out of a postmodern metropolis in flames.

Richard returns to his relatives in  Barangay Pogo in Bayambang.  The entire barrio is busy preparing for its annual fiesta celebrations which will commence on the following day. He reunites with his brother Rolando and his family from Barangay Quintong who also came for the fiesta. He reveals to him that he has decided to stay in Bayambang for a few years to teach art in a university and continue creating his artworks.  Richard reveals he wants to learn more about his roots that is why he will help till the land where their ancestors were born.

Richard reveals further that his  Filipino-American girlfriend agreed to marry him here in the Philippines. He asks his brother Rolando to be the best man for his wedding next month in the Catholic church of Bayambang. Rolando promises to delay his flight for a few weeks so he can help and attend in his brother’s wedding.

By night time, Richard finally reveals to Rolando that he had seen their long lost mother in the Siblaw Taraw lake in Barlig. He opens a small black box and shows him a white feather from their mother’s wings. Richard gives the feather to Rolando advising him to bring it with him when he goes abroad because it will protect him and give him luck.

In the Siblaw Taraw lake, we see Celeste Manaois flapping her wings preparing for the long flight returning to the skyworld.

*(Dialogues in most of the scenes will be conducted in the Pangasinan language. Dialogues in additional scenes will be conducted in the Bolinao, Kankanaey, Iluko and Tagalog languages.)

3. Synopsis of Anacbanua, a full-length narrative feature film in HDV format (currently on the post-production stage).

ANACBANUA  (The Child of the Sun)

STAGE 1: INAGEM   (Illness)

The Poet (Umaanlong), a  cosmopolitan intellectual who is middle class and Western educated returns to Pangasinan, the motherland of his birth and his ancestors, where he was uprooted for a very long time. He is sick with a lingering physical, mental and spiritual illness for refusing to accept his ancestor’s calling to be the next tumatagaumen (traditional healer and ritualist) in their family line. The Muse (Musia), a figure representing the life force inhabiting Pangasinan’s heartland takes care of the Poet during his period of illness. The Musia performs a ritual that identifies the cause of the Poet’s disease. Then she makes an offering (atang) to the ancestral (anito) and nature (caibaan and dika’y dalin)  spirits inhabiting sacred spaces in the physical landscape to appease them in causing the Poet’s lingering illness.

STAGE 2:  PIKAKASAKEY  ED TALBA  (The Cosmic Immersion)

While in half-sleep, the Poet’s soul leaves his diseased body (soul flight)  and travels to places and timezones (sankaereman) in the Pangasinan heartland. The Poet undergoes cosmic immersion, a deep and intense religious experience for “chosen” people like the Poet where the “self” (kasikasikaan) gets absorbed in the universe (sansinakub). The Poet discovers the Child (Ogaw), who serves as a spirit guide in his magical journey. In this cosmic immersion, the Poet undergoes a series of gradual and violent transformations similar to the fermentation of fish sauce (inasin), slaughtering of livestock, pounding and shaping of burning metal rods in the anvil (pandayay lokoy tan tarem), the moulding of the moist clay into pottery (dalican), and the baking of the moist bricks (larios) in the fire of the kiln or oven (pugon) – a series of rituals and tests a novice undergoes to become a full-pledged tumatagaumen who is called and destined to serve his people. Through this soul journey, the uprooted Poet reclaims his primeval and ancestral connection to the water (danum), to the land (uma), and to the people (katooan), key figures that mark Pangasinan’s landscape, history and identity.

STAGE 3:  PANLINGKORAN KO’Y KALUYAGAN (Serving My People)

Like his ancestors who belonged to the exclusive ranks of the tumatagaumen -  healers, ritualists or intermediaries between humans and the spirit world, storytellers or transmitter of culture, and community leaders, the Umaanlong (Poet) successfully passes the most difficult test of a novice’s initiation and finally becomes a full-pledged tumatagaumen. The Poet is totally healed of his illness and is finally liberated.

As a full-pledged tumatagaumen, he joins the common people in the heart of the Pangasinan motherland, offering himself and his art towards the humanistic progress of his luyag (community) and the katooan (people). In this renewed and higher state of transcendence and being, the Umaanlong (Poet) unites and becomes one with the Musia (Muse).

4. SURREAL RANDOM MMS TEXTS PARA ED INA, AGUI, TAN KAAMONG YA MAKAKAILIW ED SIKA : GURGURLIS ED BANUA (Surreal Random MMS Texts for a Mother, a Sister, and a Wife who longs for you : Landscape with Figures)

Synopsis

Using a Pangasinan-language translation of Filipino-American writer-activist Carlos Bulosan’s 1942 poem “Landscape with Figures”  as a narration, a young expatriate Filipino filmmaker working in the Middle East sends surreal, random and found digital images of displacement and longing to his loved ones in the Pangasinan region in the northern part of Philippines.

Production Notes

Year of Production:           2008

Country of Production:      Philippines

Producer:                           Sine Caboloan Ltd.Co.

Format:                               DVD NTSC

Running Time:                   15 minutes

Genre :                               short film, experimental

Original Language:           Pangasinan

Subtitles:                            English

Credits:

*  Concept, Camera and Post-Production by Christopher Gozum

*  Narration based from Carlos Bulosan’s poem “Landscape with Figures” (1942)

*  Pangasinan-language translation of Carlos Bulosan’s poem by Santiago

   Villafania

* Sound Design by Earl Drilon, John Sobrepena and Otomo Yoshihide’s New

  Jazz Quintet

* Cast :  Asian migrant workers in the Middle East

5. The Calling