“walang himala. ang himala ay nasa puso ng tao. nasa puso nating lahat. tayo ang gunagawa ng himala. tayo ang gumagawa ng mga sumpa at ng mga diyos.” when all hope is lost people will cling to even the smallest of ‘miracles’. this film is kind of a commentary of the reality of fanaticism especially when it comes to faith in religion and as the words spread of elsa’s healing prowess and how they keep believing her words, opportunities arises — capitalism comes into the picture— and people takes advantage, opportunist gets rich and all the poor has are the lies they were told and believed in. even if this is not what elsa intended she essentially created a cult that believes everything she says. throughout the film there’s scenes every now and then where hundreds of people chant the same prayer over and over again and its such an ominous thing to see, not only that but every time she makes an appearance everyone clamors towards her. the last few minutes of the movies is quite literally hell on earth, imagine telling those people that there are no miracles and that she essentially lied to all of them and yet they didn’t believe her and till the very end they believed her lies and even thought of her like a saint, its insane but man what an incredible scene. there’s a reason why this is a filipino classic. nora aunor — may she rest in peace — is such an incredible actress, so grateful for everything she had contributed to philippine cinema. this is my very first ishmael bernal film too (a crime!) and man what a great introduction to his work, i understand why people say this is his magnum opus. this is definitely one of those films you would recommend to people to introduce philippine cinema.