Jonalyn Ablong

A Kapampangan youth who doesn't know how to speak in Kapampangan--and doesn't want to--until he runs into a compelling but weird character known as the king of Kapampangan poets.

ITAN's parents, 12, Sambal Ayta, have fully decided that he will not continue his education. He said that he has reached Grade 6 enough where he can read and write, he said he will only help the family to get the heart of the banana and eat in the mountains. The study is not supposed to be for curls like him, but only for those who are stretched. Itan's dream seemed to crumble and despair until he found a broken computer keyboard.

The mountain-dwelling Aetas have been forced to settle in the lowlands by the sudden eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. With their settlements being closer to the government-funded schools of the Kapampangan townships, the Aeta children now have the opportunity to study. Jonalyn, one of the elementary school graduates of the ceremony depicted in the confused introduction and an Aeta, seeks to teach her elders to read and write a day before the National Elections. With Jonalyn's effort, the Aetas, for the very first time, have participated in the democratic process that has existed in the Philippines since the early part of the 20th century.