Mitchelle Moreno

Happyland

It’s not easy for ambition to survive in a place like Tondo, one of the poorest and roughest slums of Manila. But thirteen-year-old Chrisval de Castro, who has lived in Tondo all his life, isn’t afraid to dream big. Almost every day, the first year high school student and part-time padyak boy can be spotted practicing football on the streets outside his house. He dreams of playing football for the Philippine national team one day.

Tribe

In the darker side of Manila-by-night, tribes of youthful gangsters roam the streets in search of quick fixes and precarious thrills. World-weary Tondo throbs to the beat of of hiphop and freestyle gangsta rap, and to the scents and sensations of drugs and sex and violence. We witness this crepus-cular underworld through the eyes of ten-year-old Ebet. We follow him as he witnesses the deadly lives of teen age gang members in Tondo and the events that lead to their explosive confrontation.