Richard Cawed

A story of a woman miner from the mountains of Benguet, who struggles to balance life as a miner and a single parent. “Butas” takes you to a journey in the life of a mother who struggles to make ends meet but is hopeful to provide a better life for her son. Due to poverty, she is forced to work in a foreign country but comes back to the Philippines after her husband dies from a mining accident.

At her mother's request, Mina returns to her hometown in Benguet to visit her grandmother. Along the way, she is confronted by a landscape transformed by time and development, stirring memories of family, childhood, and the place she once called home. As her journey unfolds, Mina begins to reconnect with the stories, traditions, and quiet presence of the land, reflecting on what remains even as people and places change

After a horrific collision between a passenger bus and an 18-wheeler truck in Nueva Ecija claimed two dozen casualties, two families await the arrival of their dead.

Following the Japanese invasion in the 1940s, Awiyao comes home to his wife Lumnay to ask her to attend the wedding dance, an invitation that stirs memories of joy, pain, and emptiness. It is an invitation to celebrate his new wedding dance.