Bobby Chan heads the community organisation Palawan NGO Network Inc (PNNI), a band of land guardians who hunt illegal loggers and confiscate their chainsaws as part of their trophy collection. They also go after unlawful fishermen who fish with prohibited chemicals. Chan is an environmental lawyer, a devout Catholic who studied at the private Jesuit school of Ateneo de Manila, living and imbibing his alma mater mantra of being a man for others. Chan’s operations head is Efren Balladares, nicknamed Tata, an ex-illegal logger who was a member of the government’s paramilitary force formed to suppress Muslim and communist terrorism. Tata’s commitment to PNNI stems from penance for his checkered past. And then, there’s Nieves Rosento, the valiant mayor of Palawan’s most popular tourist town of El Nido, home to one of the world’s richest rainforests and virgin beaches. She gained grassroots popularity for her wildlife protection efforts and has closely supported and coordinated with PNNI.
These defenders of the environment contend with violent and ruthless forces both smaller and larger than them. During the film’s opening, the audience is immersed in Chan’s very delicate and dangerous operations as the camera follows them catching illegal loggers in the act. As they confiscate their chainsaws, Chan and Tata know these smalltime bandits are being supported and controlled by bigtime magnates. Meanwhile, Rosento is in an uphill reelection battle against an opposition candidate supported by her political arch-enemy, the very wealthy and powerful Palawan governor Jose Alvarez, a onetime logging magnate and land developer, who is supported by President Rodrigo Duterte. Conveniently, as part of his drug war, Duterte has accused Rosento of being a narco cartel member. Unfazed, Rosento wages war against a dirty election campaign supported by land developers and the wealthy opposition party. In the meantime, a spokesperson for Alvarez has made their own death threats against Chan and his renegade group. The film’s central breaking point is a death among its members as the pressures from above are out to break the film’s protagonists. This incident nails the coffin to a Global Witness report that the Philippines is the most dangerous country for land defenders.
As a whole, DELIKADO is as brave as its subjects. The film is gritty and does not hold back in documenting what could have been deadly situations. Malakunas ventures beyond the lives and pursuits of environmental activists and uncovers a country-wide structure and system of political corruption, human rights abuses, and social injustice. It is as if nature preservation is a metaphor for a purging of the country’s current morals and values.
DELIKADO premiered at the Sydney Film Festival 2022 in Australia and won the festival’s second-ever $10,000 Sustainable Future Award.
The Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF) has been ongoing at the Ritz Cinema in Randwick, Sydney, which started from 18 February up to 24 March 2021. It is midway through this annual event, and the Ritz Cinema has been busy accommodating lovers of Jewish cinema.
You know you are watching a film from a master perfectionist when everything is seamlessly interconnected and plausible no matter how improbable and far-fetched it could have been. In PARASITE, South Korean auteur filmmaker Bong Joon-ho has just done that.
