Article le Monde 22 05 04

Amidst a small community of indigents living along the shore of the
filthy waters of the Manila Bay, Basilio and his young brother, who
are from Leyte Island, search for work but find only poverty and the
endless struggle to survive. Basilio falls in love with Paquita, a
prostitute victimized by a brutal gang lord.

Out of this melodramatic canvas, Filipino filmmaker Mario O'Hara has
created an astonishing film that defies classification. The direct,
heedless, joyfully primitive and naive shape of this "Tramp's Opera"
is constantly held in check by a distance, a baroque fascination for
the physical and moral monstrosities, pathological corruption, and
successive misfortunes of this little world, and by the use of a song
and music score that comment ironically on the story.

Jean-Francois Rauger

(Translation by Ligaya del Fierro)