The film opens in a province setting, where our protagonist, Ruben (played by Dennis Trillo), and his family live. He was a carpenter of the local government, but was laid off and replaced in his post because he didn’t support the current mayor in the past election. He has a wife and a kid. They are living with his father-in-law, who was a tenant farmer on a piece of land. The land was promised to be given to them but the owner died and his daughter did not honor the agreement. Add to their poverty-stricken situation the incessant pillaging of their “kamalig” (granary or barn) by rebels. Anyway, that’s the scenario in Quezon province that Ruben left, when he went with his Uncle Manuel to work at the President’s mansion in Quezon City. Need I say that the president who owned the mansion was the late President Manuel Luis Quezon?

He arrived in Manila and saw a worse situation than the one he left back home when he visited his cousin at a squatter’s area. When he finally came to the mansion, he was awed by the enormity of the house. A striking contrast to the shack of his cousin, where he had just been and slept taking turns because there was not enough space. In the President’s mansion, Ruben tries to learn more about the president and the Philippine history. In the course of his readings, he began to idolize the president and tried to copy him. President Manuel Quezon became his inspiration. He believed that they had a lot of things in common, both coming from a poor family, being sickly as a child, having to walk long distances just to go to school and not speaking or understanding English until they were already adults. Ruben believed that like President Quezon he could also succeed in life and rise up from poverty.

Okay…I think I should stop telling the story here, before I bore you. So, did I like it or not? Read full review here: http://heblogs-sheblogs.com/2012/07/ang-katiwala-an-indie-film-from-a-commoner%E2%80%99s-view/