About the Film — Delikado The Film

THE FILM

Palawan appears to be an idyllic tropical island. Its powder-white beaches and lush forests have made it one of Asia’s hottest new tourist destinations. But for a tiny network of environmental crusaders and vigilantes trying to protect its spectacular natural resources, it is more akin to a battlefield.

DELIKADO follows Bobby, Tata and Nieves, three magnetic leaders of this network, as they risk their lives in David versus Goliath-style struggles trying to stop politicians and businessmen from destroying the Philippines’ “last ecological frontier”.

It is a timely film emblematic of the struggles globally for land defenders as they are being killed in record numbers trying to save natural resources from being plundered by corporations and governments. As the world faces its sixth-mass extinction and the climate emergency worsens, it has never been a more dangerous time to be a land defender.

It is also a unique expose of President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” in the Philippines, which has claimed thousands of lives and the International Criminal Court of Justice has said may amount to a crime against humanity. DELIKADO shows the drug war is used as a tool for politicians to control the levers of economic and political power.

DELIKADO offers a story of courage and resilience to inspire others into action.

THE PEOPLE

Bobby

Bobby, an environmental lawyer, is the executive director of the Palawan NGO Network Inc. (PNNI). Bobby finished his law degree, Juris Doctor, in 1994 in the Ateneo School of Law in Manila and immediately pursued an internship program with the Ateneo Human Rights Center, for which he was assigned to environmental law practice in Palawan. Bobby has been the head of PNNI since 2009, a position from which he has pursued his vision of empowering local community members to harness the law and stop illegal logging, illegal fishing, mining and other environmental crimes, through 'self-help' enforcement strategies and a bit of divine providence.
Tata

Tata is a farmer and grandfather from southern Palawan who has been one of PNNI’s leading para-enforcers for many years. As a young man, Tata was the head of a para-military force created by the Philippine government to fight communist and Muslim insurgencies in Palawan. The unit was also meant to protect Palawan’s natural resources. Instead, it was assigned to illegally cut down trees. Tata has spent the rest of his life seeking redemption for the logging he was ordered to do as a para-military head.
Nieves

Nieves, a mother of three and grandmother of two, is a longtime environmental campaigner. Nieves transitioned into politics and was elected mayor of El Nido, the most popular tourist town on Palawan, in 2016. She defeated a member of one of Palawan’s most powerful political families in that election. President Rodrigo Duterte accused her in a national address of being a drug trafficker just ahead of the next elections in 2019 and threatened to kill her. Duterte provided no evidence for these accusations and she was never charged. But the unfounded allegations contributed to her loss in the 2019 elections. She continues her environmental and community activism, and maintains her political ambitions.
Kap Ruben

Oct 29, 1967 - September 14, 2017
Kap was one of the PNNI's on-the-ground volunteer leaders, with his main area of responsibility the forested mountains around his home town of El Nido. Kap was a dedicated husband and father-of-five, and led his community as an elected village captain. Kap was determined to stop the destruction of his local environment, regardless of the risks to his own life.

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DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

In 2011, as a journalist for Agence-France Presse based in Manila, I was preparing for a trip to Palawan to write an article on eco-tourism. Palawan is home to the Philippines’ last great rainforests and it's one of the most beautiful places in the country.

But my contact for the story, an environmental campaigner, was shot and killed just before I was due to go. I went anyway, to investigate his murder. When I was there, I discovered this seemingly idyllic island was being destroyed by the people in power who were meant to be protecting it. I also discovered a small group of people putting their lives on the line trying to stop the destruction.

One of them was Bobby Chan, a charismatic lawyer from Manila. Bobby had a tree outside his office made of chainsaws that he and his men had confiscated from illegal loggers in Palawan’s rainforests.

Bobby told me stories about the citizen’s arrest law he used as the basis for the confiscations, and about his men being murdered for doing this type of work.

The chainsaw tree was a not-so-subtle symbol to local businessmen and politicians that he and his men would not be intimidated.

I decided then that I had to make a film about the land defenders of Palawan.

I spent many years researching, documenting and investigating the specific issues in Palawan, as well as building trusting relationships with the main characters in the film - and many others who add to this important story. I slept in the forests with Bobby’s team of barefoot renegades as they tracked down illegal loggers and confiscated chainsaws. I went on the campaign trail with Nieves Rosento, an environmental heroine-turned politician as she waited for an assassin’s bullet.

I filmed DELIKADO with the intention of it being an intimate thriller about the lives of the land defenders, to ensure that audiences feel an emotional connection with the characters while learning about extremely compelling social and environmental issues.

- Karl Malakunas