Synopsis--- Fidel Alipio (Michael de Mesa) collects tong from passing jeepneys for the traffic cops. He is in love with Lani (Gina Alajar), a bar girl.
married but their honeymoon is cut short when they run out of funds. Much to his objections, Lani returns to the bar. One of her steady customers is Mr. Perez (Subas Herrero), whom he suspects to be her lover. One night after a misunderstanding, he accidentally shoots him dead. He is sentenced to die in the electric chair.
Lani finds herself pregnant. She tells Fidel but he refuses to believe it is his child. The baby is born and is christened Maripi (Katrin Gonzales). She suffers from complications and becomes blind. Lani has to fend for the two of them. She becomes a street walker. While she is away, Maripi is cared for by Celing (Caridad Sanchez), an aging, former bar girl who runs a sari-sari store and has no family. Lani and Maripi live in her house but are not charged rent.
One night, Lani is picked up by the police for vagrancy. Rudy Velez (Edu Manzano), a news reporter, convinces the superintendent to release her. He drives her home and meets Maripi. He tries to convince her to turn a new leaf. Lani listens to Rudy and applies for a job in a department store. She gets accepted as a shop girl and is in charge of the perfumery section. However, the store manager, who knows her to be a former hooker, eyes her lasciviously.
One night, while Lani and Rudy are away, thieves break into the store. Celing wakes up and is stabbed by the assailants. Maripi cries for help. There is now no one to care for her blind child. Lani brings her to her place of work. The store manager castigates her for doing so, in contravention of the rules. Lani becomes angry and sweeps the perfume bottles off the counter. She is slapped a bill for the broken bottles; she has no money to pay for them. She asks for reconsideration; he insinuates a sexual favor.
Lani is as cynical as ever. She goes back to street walking. Maripi is left alone in the house. One day, Rudy picks her up in church as she is beseeching the Lord Almighty for favors. He brings her to an eye specialist. He is told that she could regain her eyesight if someone would donate a pair of eyes. But it has to come from someone who has just died within twenty-four hours prior to the operation and who is not sick.
Rudy decides to write an appeal for a donor in his paper. But, upon the proddings of his editor, the writeup is sensationalized. Lani is edited out of the story and Maripi is made to look like an orphan. Fidel Alipio, now a changed man, reads about it and, knowing that his end is near, offers his eyes. A meeting is set between Maripi and her donor. As it is a hot item, Rudy is told to cover it. There is surprise and glee when Fidel discovers Lani and Maripi. He is reunited with them and now accepts her as his child. The paper plays up the reconciliation. The next few days are a happy one for the family. They are together during Christmas.
Because of the extensive press coverage, Fidel is given a pardon. But a new problem erupts. Who is now going to give his eyes to Maripi? As he looks at the fireworks on New Year Eve, Fidel reflects on his life. He has wasted it and should allow others to be given the chances he has thrown away. The following day, he is found dead. An operation is rushed. Maripi has been given the gift of sight by her father.
married but their honeymoon is cut short when they run out of funds. Much to his objections, Lani returns to the bar. One of her steady customers is Mr. Perez (Subas Herrero), whom he suspects to be her lover. One night after a misunderstanding, he accidentally shoots him dead. He is sentenced to die in the electric chair.
Lani finds herself pregnant. She tells Fidel but he refuses to believe it is his child. The baby is born and is christened Maripi (Katrin Gonzales). She suffers from complications and becomes blind. Lani has to fend for the two of them. She becomes a street walker. While she is away, Maripi is cared for by Celing (Caridad Sanchez), an aging, former bar girl who runs a sari-sari store and has no family. Lani and Maripi live in her house but are not charged rent.
One night, Lani is picked up by the police for vagrancy. Rudy Velez (Edu Manzano), a news reporter, convinces the superintendent to release her. He drives her home and meets Maripi. He tries to convince her to turn a new leaf. Lani listens to Rudy and applies for a job in a department store. She gets accepted as a shop girl and is in charge of the perfumery section. However, the store manager, who knows her to be a former hooker, eyes her lasciviously.
One night, while Lani and Rudy are away, thieves break into the store. Celing wakes up and is stabbed by the assailants. Maripi cries for help. There is now no one to care for her blind child. Lani brings her to her place of work. The store manager castigates her for doing so, in contravention of the rules. Lani becomes angry and sweeps the perfume bottles off the counter. She is slapped a bill for the broken bottles; she has no money to pay for them. She asks for reconsideration; he insinuates a sexual favor.
Because of the extensive press coverage, Fidel is given a pardon. But a new problem erupts. Who is now going to give his eyes to Maripi? As he looks at the fireworks on New Year Eve, Fidel reflects on his life. He has wasted it and should allow others to be given the chances he has thrown away. The following day, he is found dead. An operation is rushed. Maripi has been given the gift of sight by her father.
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Emil Ornedo (Cris Villanueva) is a seminarian in the Order of St. John of the Cross. He is very much in love with Dolores and confesses he joined the seminary to be near her. He too will be saying his vows as a brother soon. He proposes to Dolores who turns him down. She is very determined to become a nun.
One of the duties of the nuns is to serve the community. The Daughters of St. Anne is committed to help Dr. Vince Leveriza (Christopher de Leon) in setting up a free clinic in San Lazaro. Sisters Dolores and Amanda have been assigned to help out. Dolores’ pregnant sister, Belinda (Maricel Laxa), and her husband, Alan (Gabby Concepcion), are vacationing in the area. One evening, her sister delivers a stillborn baby girl. Vince and Dolores are called to help. Belinda cries profusely and asks Dolores to intercede with God for her child’s life. Dolores cradles the baby in her arms and, as she looks at the picture of the Holy Family on the wall, the baby starts to cry. Belinda calls it a miracle, but Dolores tells her to keep mum. Dolores is more sure than ever that the nunnery is her life.
But as she is bicycling back to her order, a mysterious stranger manages to assault her and cover her nose with a piece of cloth drenched with chloroform. Upon regaining consciousness, she realizes she has been violated. She goes to a stream and washes herself pure.
Dolores confronts Emil but learns he is not the guilty party. She is distraught and feels that God has betrayed her. She continues on with her final vows. In the ceremony, she faints. She is found to be pregnant. The nuns are scandalized. Sister Carmen, the mother superior, locks her up in her room and allows no one to visit her. She talks to Sister Bernadette, the oldest of the congregation, about having the baby adopted once it is born. Sister Amanda overhears the conversation and tells Dolores. Dolores wants to keep the baby and feels she must leave. With the help of Sister Amanda, she manages to escape. It is a rainy night, and she knocks on the door of a kind woman who lives with her lame daughter, Rebecca. She delivers a baby boy whom she calls Nino.
Rebecca becomes close to her and asks, as she is a person of God, to intercede with him so that she could walk again. Dolores places her hands on her legs but they do not move. Dolores visits her mother who slaps her when she finds out. She hurriedly leaves the house when her mother calls the convent. She boards with Alan and Belinda who scoff at her religiosity. The father accepts Dolores as an unwed mother and settles her obligations with the nuns. She is now released from her vows. She searches out Emil, but to her disappointment, he has changed his mind. He now wants to become a priest.
Dolores now tries to adjust to a secular life. She learns that Alan and Belinda are at odds with each other and that Marga, their child, is not his daughter. Belinda was carrying on with a married man who left her. He married her upon their father's promise of a position in her law firm. On their wedding night, she laughed at him for being such a wimp. His illusions vanished at that very moment. One day, Marga becomes ill. Dr. Vince Leveriza is called for. He is happy to see Dolores and learns about her condition. He starts courting her and, in due time, gets her to be his wife. On their wedding night, Dolores is unsettled by the sex act. She tries to postpone it, but Vince is insistent. In his exasperation, he reveals that he is her rapist. He did it out of his contempt for the condescending, holier-than-thou attitudes of the religious. Dolores becomes hysterical.
Dolores and Vince present themselves as happily married to the eyes of their acquaintances, though she refuses to sleep with him. Out of his desperation, Vince sleeps around --- with Belinda whose husband also refuses to fulfill his marital obligations. One night, Dolores spots some plane tickets in his shirt. She disposes of them. It seems Vince had intended to leave for somewhere with their son.
It is Dolores’ birthday party. She has invited her parents and friends to a dinner. She notices a bulge in the stomach of Ursula Maniago, her servant. She forces her to reveal the name of the culprit. It is her husband. There is bedlam with the revelation and Dolores’ father confronts Vince. He suffers a heart attack and expires while punching him. Dolores now sinks deeper into morbidity and blames herself for her father’s death. Vince now sleeps openly with the maid in her quarters in the garage. In a moment of insanity, Dolores decides to burn down the adjacent structure. Vince and Ursula are burned alive, along with their son.
It is a sensational court case. Dolores is arraigned on two counts of parricide and premeditated murder. Alan, who admits being in love with Dolores, is her lawyer. He ably defends her. She is acquitted of the charges but is committed to an insane asylum.
Source: Lino Brocka: The Artist and His Times
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