Mac Andre Arboleda

“Ang lahat ng ito, mas malaki pa sa iyo (This whole thing is bigger than you),” said Mendoza (John Arcilla) to his cohort Domingo (Arnold Reyes). Both police officers were investigating the disappearance of farmers en route to Manila on a bus when they were ordered to focus on the killing of a Philippine eagle in their area instead.

This is the premise of Birdshot, a crime/thriller/coming-of-age drama film by Mikhail Red (Rekorder). The film has bagged numerous awards, including Best Picture in the Asian Future category at the 2016 Tokyo International Film Festival, and is the Philippines’ Foreign Language Film entry to the 2018 Academy Awards. A screening was held last March 12 at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), which was organized by the UPLB Engineering Society.

Many Filipino films that have circulated in recent indie festivals take this route of questioning: Does society value the environment more than humans? Is protecting nature more important than protecting the lives of our fellow Filipinos? In this case, it is the declining sanctuary’s missing haribon that represents ‘nature.’

The answer is, of course, always tricky when there are laws that protect both animals and humans, and when high-level corruption, police brutality, and vengeance are present. This is succinctly portrayed in rookie cop Domingo’s transformation from questionably idealistic, justice-seeking father of a newborn child, to perpetrator of the same kind of violence allowed and enforced by those above him in the hierarchy topped by his bosses, the government, and the elite.