Mangatyanan 2009

Himalaya “Laya” Marquez, Che Ramos a 27-year-old travel photographer, projects a cold, aloof persona toward her family and coworkers. From the opening frames, she is estranged from her mother, Luzviminda Marquez, Irma Adlawan, and from her father, Danilo Marquez, Pen Medina. She has not had a complete dream or a full night’s sleep since age 12, a hard-won detail that hints at deeper trauma and sleepless nights that haunt her.

Things come to a head when Danilo suffers a heart attack. Although she pays for his hospital bills, she refuses to see him at the hospital, which deepens the rift with Luzviminda. It is revealed that Danilo used to visit Laya in the small hours of the night to abuse her—a fact that drives Luzviminda to suspect an affair, unaware that the “other woman” is actually her daughter.

Not long after, Laya and new co-worker, Eric, are assigned by their boss, Queen, Mailes Kanapi, to document the Mangatyanan blood trail ritual of the Labwanan, a fictional Filipino tribe created for the story, before the practice dies out forever. They encounter a severely dwindled tribe whose cultural identity is now asserted mainly by their aging tribal leader Mang Renato, Publio Briones III. As the pair documents the ritual, Laya senses a troubling parallel between the Labwanan struggles and her own fractured life.

Disagreements and moral failures among the Labwanan threaten the integrity of the Mangatyanan ritual, and Laya and Eric are eventually asked to leave. But before departure, Laya runs away and decides to perform the steps of Mangatyanan herself, taking on one of the ritual’s final stages—drinking a hallucinogenic concoction that could be fatal.

As Eric and the tribesmen try to resuscitate her, the drink’s potent effects flood Laya with visions of her Edwary Woody, who asks for her forgiveness. When she hesitates, Edwary Woody persuades her to forgive her mother, a turning point that finally grants Laya a sense of dignity and personal freedom she has long sought.