Bakal Boys (2009, Ralston Jover)

Riding through the streets of Metro Manila, an observant commuter will notice something amiss. Once in a while, manhole covers on the streets and steel railings from flyovers disappear. Blame it on the rising number of desperate bakal men and boys. Several of them filch and steal every possible metal scrap they can lay their hands on. These items will later be sold at dishonest junk shops.

Bakal Boys starts with a pair of kids, Utoy and Bungal, running away from a security guard. They have just stolen some metal scraps from a ship. Just when the security guard comes close to apprehending the pair, the duo dives into the polluted waters of Manila Bay. Most of the time, though, Utoy and the other kids get their scraps the hard, legit way. The poor kids scour the dirty waters looking for metal pieces. They are expert divers because they live in the nearby Baseco compound in Tondo.

Director Ralston Jover utilized real-life children metal divers from the slum area of Baseco. The film takes a look at how they go about doing their work. The brazen way in which the kids take to the waters is simply unnerving.

Like a well-coordinated platoon of soldiers, they pursue their mission of retrieving an anchor with aplomb. Each one of them has a respective task to do. The divers plumb the murky depths. Some cook rice. A few youngsters fetch a banca for their ride back to the compound. The junk shop owner shortchanges the group. The kids can not complain because of the owner's threat of charging them with theft. After settling the transaction, the kids realize that one of them is missing in action. The loss of Bungal becomes a catalyst for the redemption of Utoy.

Bakal Boys does a neat job of essaying the lives of children metal divers. Jover's direction is generally good but some scenes with the kids are stagey. The junk shop scene shows the kids scratching their heads in unison. There are also scenes in which the kid actors anticipate their dialogue cues.

Nevertheless, Bakal Boys is a remarkable debut feature film. It may not be on par with the 'real-time' films of Brillante Mendoza and Jeffrey Jeturian but it is better than most mainstream films out there. Jover has the chops to make excellent films in the future. His earlier movie, Marlon, won the best documentary award at the 10th Cinemanila International Film Festival.

If you want a more insightful look at children metal divers, then check out the short film Batang Pier. The documentary film, directed by La Salle students Camille Adraincem, Paola Recuenco, and Michelle Saquido, examines in depth the problems and aspirations of the young metal divers of Manila's South Harbor.

Foster Child (Brillante Mendoza, 2007)

There is a special attentiveness, an almost preternatural solicitousness that accompanies the care of the titular child in Brillante Mendoza’s Foster Child. Even before the foster family can settle down to eat the first meal of the day, one of them must hurry out to buy diapers for the urine-drenched child. Instead of receiving stern discipline for wetting himself, this child is lavished with understanding and affection. During the course of long days in an overcrowded warren of suburban Manila, the foster child named John-John (Kier Segundo) receives devotional attention: he is fed, bathed, clothed with a kind of care that foster mother Thelma (Cherry Pie Picache) may not have given her own children.

It’s a premise fraught with the kind of emotional largesse that will appeal to this country of bleeding hearts, but the biggest virtue of this film is the restraint of Brillante Mendoza’s direction. Histrionics do not figure much in the director’s scheme of things. With a treatment that combines neorealist concerns and settings (Visconti’s Bellissima comes to mind) and both the thematic and cinematographic approaches of the Dardenne Brothers, Foster Child dwells tastefully on the dilemma inherent in foster care: what happens when a foster family becomes too attached to a foster child?

In Foster Child, Thelma and her family initially appear to have mastered the art of child rearing and the emotions of inevitable separation. As the film begins, it’s been eight practiced years since Thelma entered the fostering business. Everyone in the family is involved – mother, father (Dan Alvaro) and two sons – in lavishing love on the foster child. Even Thelma’s seemingly neglected son, Yuri (Jiro Manio), is no less caring for him. He cooks meals for him and carries him around like a younger brother.

The most crucial care, however, comes from Thelma. She is introduced as a model foster mother, never choosing a child to bring home, whether healthy or, say, afflicted with retardation. Her current “assignment,” John-John, however, is unlike any other: fair-skinned, mild-mannered and good-looking. (The filmmakers opted for an easy sell, it seems.) As John-John’s identity becomes clear – his abandonment at the orphanage, Hospicio de San Jose, in a sickly and premature condition – Thelma’s role in bringing him up becomes apparent to the viewer.

What we know about Thelma is beyond reproach – except perhaps for the fact that she might be deemed to be slightly naïve. Approached by a woman mendicant carrying a child, Thelma doesn’t hesitate to help her with some loose change. Bianca (Eugene Domingo), the social worker who gives Thelma her assignments, is more cynical but practical: she reproaches Thelma for abetting the crime of begging, and being fooled by someone using a child as an emotional bait.

The penultimate scenes at the plush hotel where Thelma and Bianca have brought John-John to turn him over to his new family (a wealthy American family) are by turns humorous and poignant. It seems like a cruel joke and yet necessary to involve the foster mother in these proceedings –in a final leave-taking, as it were. At one point, Thelma brings out a lovingly made photo album chronicling John-John’s young life. In her best but broken English, she proudly points out the milestones of the child’s early years, those tenuous years that will soon be forgotten.

As Foster Child reveals there is an entire cottage industry revolving around foster care in this country. What director Mendoza and scriptwriter Ralston Jover have brilliantly conceived and ably dramatized is how emotionally costly foster care can prove to be. Giving care, giving love, can never be so depersonalized as to be a simple cut-and-dried economic activity. Foster children should never change hands like mere commodities. Foster Child is a tragic tale that will break your heart.