August 11, 2026
Paring Bert (Rocco Nacino) was the parish priest of a church in Quezon City. He had been invited to the wake of a young former parishioner of his who had passed away as a casualty from the war on drugs. His taxi driver friend Santos Mira (Floyd Tena) just so happened to be at the church at that time to rest after a long night's drive. He volunteered to drive Paring Bert to his destination in Cavite using his old white taxi, license plate ABS 7029.
Along the way there, they made several stopovers and encountered various people. They brought an injured dog into a veterinarian's clinic and met a nutty family (Jess Mendoza, Chai Fonacier) there. Santos went to join a roadside drinking session to confront a thief. Fr. Bert went to visit his mentor, Fr. Jess (Glenn Sevilla Mas) in his vintage stone church. Santos requested that they make one final stop at a small shack in a remote area.
This film is the feature directorial debut of May-i Padilla, who also co-wrote the script (with Charlson Ong) and did the editing. It was like they knew the ending they wanted first, and just added the rest of narrative up to build up to that ending. The events in the previous stops along the way seem so random and do not exactly relate to what happens in the ending. However, on hindsight, they all certainly portended to that eventuality.
The slow pace of the storytelling may actually prove to be difficult to ride with, especially for impatient viewers. Most of the film was just conversations between Paring Bert and Santos, much of them set within the confines of the taxi cab while driving around. The vet clinic scenes were funny, even if it involved euthanasia and grave digging. The atmosphere grew heavier and heavier with every stop, and Padilla made sure we all felt that sense of danger.
Paring Bert was based on a real-life Jesuit priest, Paring Bert Alejo, an activist for various socio-political issues. Rocco Nacino's Paring Bert was careful and level-headed, but there were issues like their youth council that he was passionate about. Floyd Tena caught director Padilla's attention when he played the hangman in "Gomburza" (2023). His Santos Mira was friendly as taxi drivers usuallywere. However, he also projected a distubing inner turmoil.
This film has a Catholic priest as the lead character, so importants cenes were set in churches. The churches chosen for locations were both historic -- the Basilica Minore de San Pedro Bautista in Quezon City, and Diocesan Shrine and Parish of San Andres in Masinloc, Zambales. The latter had a picturesque little pond where lit candles were floated on, where Bert and Santos' had their most heart-to-heart talk. 6/10
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