The Philippines, an archipelago of over 7,000 islands, comprises diverse ethnic groups with an equally diverse array of beliefs, languages, and customs. Comparisons to the geographical make-up of Indonesia are certainly in order, and yet, geopolitically speaking, the trajectories of both countries appear differently fated under the auspices of globalization. Whereas Indonesia, a proud founding member of BRICS, has broadly shaken off the vestiges of its colonial exploitation under the Dutch, the Filipino narrative augurs unwilling nostalgia for — and possibly dependence on — an antiquated world order. Reverence for America does not necessarily loom large, but its lingering implications do: a de jure democratic presidency, steeped in patronage and authoritarianism, has recreated with grim reverence the “shining city on a hill.” Antiquated though its loyalties may be, the Philippines is awash under global tides, its industrial dependence on agriculture a hurdle to economic supremacy, and its Anglophone demographics a convenient supplier of cheap, easy labor for the First World.
These observations are indirectly appraised in Leonor Noivo’s Bulakna, a compelling examination of the insidious ways capitalism and colonialism thrive off each other. Part ethnography and part memoir, the film draws its title from Reyna Bulakna, the mostly forgotten wife of Lapulapu, himself a national hero of the Philippines for having successfully repelled the advances of Ferdinand Magellan in the 1521 battle of Mactan. A reenactment is staged in Noivo’s feature, with a theater troupe injecting additional discourse on the socio-cultural dynamics of indigenous life prior to the eventual Spanish conquest, if only to set up the mythological framework for the film’s resolutely modern reality. Life today, especially for the women, hinges on a realization of a pipe dream to work abroad and earn a competitive, even bountiful wage. Melissa (Althea Mariz Aruta), a young woman who ekes a living on the island of Mindoro selling fish, considers going abroad to seek employment as a maid. Though the term “domestic helper” gratifies liberal sensibilities better, the bitter irony of domestic work in a foreign land — where helpers, for one, leave their families and kids behind for years on end — is not lost on those who don its mantle.
Melissa’s cautious and almost resigned optimism is gently juxtaposed with the weathered reminiscences of Norma (Norma Linda Canda), an older woman and former journalist who gave up her job to work as a domestic helper in Lisbon, Portugal. In staid voiceover, she lists out a series of rules, perhaps informally scripted or officially designated, for prospective maids to adhere to; the “more invisible you are,” she maintains, the “better your work is.” Apparent here is the discreet othering of selves, whether workers, women, or those indisposed by birth to the cocooning embrace of whiteness, and as this othering takes place seamlessly abroad, the effacement of local histories, familial ties, and love lives proceeds in an air of unspoken disquiet. Maids are not yet refugees amidst the hierarchy of the global precariat. But like Bulakna, their precarious diaspora has already been perched on the edges of oblivion. In humanizing the labor that feeds the invisible grist mill of capital, Noivo’s film solemnly stages a noble lament.
Published as part of FIDMarseille 2025 — Dispatch 2.
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