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Sunshine: A Review by Natalia Go

Major spoilers ahead.

Content warning: Rape, abortion, and overall upsetting themes

“Naiintindihan mo ba ko?” Do you understand me? Sunshine asks the little girl phantasm as she makes her final decision. 

I watched Sunshine, not knowing what it was about, but the theme was set very early on. My primal fear was that it would deeply upset me, and it would have, had Sunshine decided otherwise. But it still upset me…for a different reason. 

Set in the chaotic Sampaloc area of Manila, where I grew up, the movie sure has a hold on me. Sunshine (Maris Racal) is a student training to compete in the nationals as a gymnast with dreams of making it to the Olympics. An unexpected pregnancy derails her plans as she begins to gain weight and feel nauseated. As expected, the baby daddy is a teenage boy who has no interest in taking responsibility for the child or Sunshine. Elijah Canlas does quite a convincing portrayal of Miggy, a conyo fuckboy who relies on daddy’s money to bail him out in every sticky situation he creates for himself. 

Worried about her future, Sunshine sets out to find solutions on her own, albeit not the safest ones. Since terminating pregnancies, no matter how early, is illegal in this country, Sunshine (and I bet, many other women) resorts to shady abortifacient sellers in Quiapo. The phantasm of a little girl whom she’s been seeing appears and tries to stop her from going there, guilt-tripping her into believing what she’s doing is a sin. But she is determined to do it. She tries and fails to do the deed and ends up in the maternity ward, almost losing her life. This is where she gets a lecture from a doctor who forces her to beg God for forgiveness for what she’s done. Luckily, her older sister, a former gymnast, gets there in time to tell the doctor off. 

Desperate not to lose her spot in the competition, Sunshine tries to get her hands on the medicine again. However, she encounters another pregnant young girl who begs for the abortifacient as she has no means to take care of her situation. We find out later on that this pregnant young girl is a 13-year-old raped by her uncle and is just walking around with a huge belly on the streets, hoping to find someone to give her money to pay for a “hilot,” a traditional massage therapist who can help her abort the child. Sunshine hands her some money, and the girl sets off for it. 

More than anything in this movie, this pregnant 13-year-old girl broke my heart. She is a rape victim whose mother couldn’t care less about. Without any adult to protect her or help her get out of her situation, she almost dies after going to the hilot. Luckily, she survived, and the attempt was successful. 

What troubles me most is that this is not entirely fiction: The Philippines remains one of the countries with the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Asia. It ranks second in Southeast Asia, with over 500 girls aged 15 to 19 becoming mothers each day. Even more concerning is the increasing number of pregnancies among girls under 15. Live births in the 10 to 14 age group rose from 2,411 in 2019 to 3,343 in 2023, marking a 6.6% increase in just four years. In 2023 alone, 17 young women under 20 had already given birth five or more times, and 38 girls under 15 experienced repeated pregnancies. The youngest recorded case involved a girl who became pregnant at just 8 years old and gave birth when she was 9*. 

With no safe and legal way to help kids terminate pregnancies, their future is bleak. While the 13-year-old girl survives in the movie, there is the impending doom that she has no choice but to return to her home, where the rapist uncle is unlikely to stop harming her. 

As for Sunshine, she refuses Miggy’s and his father’s offer to pay for the child’s expenses, expressly saying in the end that “I don’t want to be a mom.” She finds help from a friend who refers her to a proper doctor to help her resolve her unwanted pregnancy and be able to fulfill her dreams of becoming a professional gymnast. 

Toward the end, Sunshine sees the phantasm of the little girl again, and she asks her…“Naiintindihan mo ba ko?” Do you understand me? The girl nods. 

This movie is excellently acted and directed. It’s believable, heartbreaking, and if you can believe it, hopeful. 

I dare say, Sunshine by Antoinette Jadaone, starring Maris Racal, is a film every Filipino should watch. 

*https://www.humanium.org/en/the-current-teenage-pregnancy-crisis-in-the-philippines/ 

Photo from IMDB

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A Dance Through Stories

Our story started at a time of great peril. We danced through masked crowds and curtains of uncertainty. We made our way out into a plot of land and turned it into a garden where we made fire out of little twigs of hope. And lit our path to tomorrow. 

Though I wasn’t one so bold to assume we’d still be here today, somehow I knew from the first moment, I wanted to. 

I longed for you before any confirmation you existed. And when you first held my hand, I understood the plan; in the universe’s grandest scheme, in which you and I are written in the stars. 

Perhaps that is magical thinking. Maybe it’s a dream. Yet in my waking hours, I decide each time to choose you. For I will relive every moment over and over, even the darkest nights, so long as they lead me back here. 

Dance with me through the rest of our story. We’ve only heard the beginning of our song. Listen…they’re playing it in the heavens. For us. I don’t care how many steps we miss as long as our feet find their way back to our spot. 

Here, where there is no hesitation in your arms when they wrap around me. 

30 November 2025

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Beneath the Gaslight

I like drawings with imperfect lines,

paint that goes just a little over the edges. 

I find chips in decorative craft

adorable. 

Unbalanced stitches, shaky layers, and disorganized canvases. 

Human hands are wonderful;

some are masterful

and most are unsteady—

nonetheless in constant pursuit

of beauty.

Some strokes of genius happen

by mistake

and discoveries abound

in misfortune. 

Feats such that unfeeling

virtual hands

can never hope to achieve. 

There’s no inspiration in programmed manipulations. 

No creativity 

in unthinking sets of flashing cards

that only show what one wants to see.

No toil, no heart, no virtue;

they are dead,

moved only by this virus

rapidly infecting our perceptions. 

They lie.

They take the names of objects

of ridiculous combinations

to convince themselves that they are real,

and trick us into believing

we are weak

for not going with the times.

They force our hands into the mud

in which they roll

with their stolen treasures. 

We are gaslit into thinking

our works are no better

for the very reason they are:

our toil,

our hearts,

our virtue. 

Natalia Go

7 October 2025

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I Want to Look At a Piece of Technology Again and Be Filled With Awe

I want to touch a piece of machinery and feel hopeful for the future. 

I want to wake up to new discoveries and not be threatened by the ill intentions of the ones who made them. 

I want to be excited about the progress every new invention could make and not worry about it killing jobs, industries, and people. 

I want to participate in change without having to worry about my demise. 

Or the decline of my intellect and creativity. 

Every day, I wake up to this nightmare of a planet. Most of the world are suffering. The rest are concerned about overfilling their coffers. And I am tied with a chain somewhere in between to tend to my needs. 

How did we get here?

I weep for the dreams of my heroes who saw the world for what it could have become today. 

I grieve the work of the writers who imagined so much more for us and whose ideas we so blatantly ignored. Nay, opposed. Defied. Trashed. 

Where are we going?

I long for the days when we saw promise in a new device. 

We were joyful. We were hopeful. We were inspired. 

We weren’t told to shut up and not question anything new. We weren’t denied the rights to make decisions about what we accepted and rejected. 

We were included.

We evolved. 

8 August 2025

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I Cast My Wishes to the Timekeepers

When time it comes for us

to read our promises

in front of witnesses,

when we profess our love

with our monograms

to the tune of our march,

the lights on our faces,

though there’d be no clergy, 

no fabric or metal bonds,

your hand in mine

will be the sacred cord,

whispering gratitudes to the stars

and the goddesses of old. 

A rain of silver and white

on our heads

wrapped in the warmth

and vibrance

of every touch afore, hereon.

To behold the fondest to my heart

each step to the hours. 

To be near, around, beside, and behind,

wherever you need me

at any given moment you allow.

I cast my wishes to the timekeepers 

who favored our existence

in the same timelines,

every one of which, I am bound

to find you. 

13 July 2025

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Woman Against Machine. Spirit Against Rot

Natalia Go's poem: Woman Against Machine. Spirit Against Rot

I hear the breaking of a chain

not long from the hour

when gold scratches on feather

and the hand lays its claim on the nib

once more.

Blood trickles into the shape of a flag,

forward and onward to tomorrow. 

Woman against machine. 

Spirit against rot. 

Water rises to a boil atop a cliff

and drips into a shamble of metals

long deformed.

Their soulless voices lost among the clouds—

artless copies fading into the chasm.

Their song the screeching of rusted pipes,

far less artful than parrots’.

And melt 

the long arms of the thieves 

whose spoils belonged to the gardeners,

too busy tending their creations

for so much as a grumble

even as they are robbed. 

Yet the hour comes.

Past a day, a decade, a moment…

it comes

anon. 

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Walls in Paper Clips

The walls gave in that night.
The last paper clips holding them together
fell to pieces
in the ocean where the water
didn’t stay wet after hitting the ground.
Salt turned into sand and metal into dust,
crackling in the heat of the seabed.

There was a roar coming from the waves
up ahead,
but they didn’t land…
wouldn’t land
as they rolled through the empty sea
towards the dam.

Still it poured.
Every drop burnt the flesh at the touch.

She held my hand as we stood
in the acid rain,
tasting the sting in her tongue
as the poison cut through my throat.
She didn’t have to bear it.
I wanted her to seek shelter from my storm.
It came for me.
But she stayed.

There was a beacon by the shore.
Its light was faint.
The light wasn’t light but a reflection
of the worlds I’d conceived in my eyes.
It was there only as long as I was,
and I was fading in the dark.
Those worlds couldn’t live
without the dreams that made them.
And they took them away.

I wanted to run.
But she held me in the middle of the field
until it was safe to walk again,
knowing my entire universe was a war zone
where the gods killed for sport.

It was hours
before I could breathe through my nose again.
Neither of us said the words
but we knew.
It was in the moment
when nothing mattered anymore
and everything was falling apart
that we heard each other’s voices
sans the sounds.
And it would be in the moments—
loud, quiet, and in between,
that we must listen.

Walls in Paper Clips
26 March 2025

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Fake PWD IDs? Are PWDs getting an unfair advantage?

I didn’t know there were cases of people creating allegedly fake PWD IDs in the Philippines to get discounts not meant for them. Maybe I’m naive, but I can’t imagine massive numbers of people doing this with the intent to deceive and take advantage of others. Why would anyone fake a disability just to get a few pesos knocked off their expenses? I rather believe that majority of Filipinos are better than this. 

First, is there data to back this up? Where is the evidence that many PWD IDs used in restaurants and other establishments are fake? How many are fake IDs, and what is the percentage of these compared to the legitimate ones? 

Now, I understand this is a valid concern, especially for small businesses, because they shoulder the 20% discount and not the government. My issue is that there didn’t need to be a question of whether or not people with disabilities deserve this discount. 

As a neurodivergent individual diagnosed with several invisible disabilities, I find it outrageous that people question the validity of my being disabled. Some of these disabilities include: 

  • ADHD (a learning disability—which is honestly an oversimplified category for what it truly is)
  • Bipolar II disorder
  • Previously, but still under treatment, Complex PTSD 

I take medications to manage these conditions and function as an adult in this highly capitalistic and ableist society. I need these meds to be able to work, do the seemingly simplest of daily tasks, and not be stuck in paralyzing states of depression, mania, and fear, among others. I spend around 20,000 pesos for these meds each month, including meds for my physical ailments, like diabetes, hypertension, endometriosis, etc., etc. Add to that the cost of medical consultations, therapy sessions, and tests, and even my above-average income is barely enough. 

Do we deserve discounts on medicines? I think most people would agree. How about discounts on food, groceries (these are limited to commodities like rice, bread, etc.), and some listed as eligible in the lifestyle category? I understand this is where people start complaining. 

I also understand that the restaurants and other establishments shoulder this legally mandated 20% discount and not the government. I think the conversation then that needs to happen is why isn’t this being taken from our taxes? Then again, people would still complain about their taxes benefitting people with disabilities—because, as is apparent in these recent outbursts from restaurant owners, people generally feel that PWDs don’t deserve it. 

So do we? 

Most of the world operates in a system that punishes us for being disabled. Schools and employment often don’t consider that we need to exert significantly more effort to function or even just stay alive. I think it’s only fair that we get some accommodations to give us a chance to live fairly normal lives. 

Ultimately, we need an overhaul of the healthcare system, which is a bigger conversation. 

I never quite forgot this statement I heard from one disabled person: “The problem is not that there are people in wheelchairs. The problem is that buildings don’t have ramps.” 

Note: I lived in the US for a few years, and they didn’t have such a law for PWDs. It’s good that we have it here. And the US is not exactly a great example to follow in terms of healthcare. 

Including this photo as a preview of this illustrated book I’m working on.

May be an illustration of text that says 'Hi! I'm Tiny, and I have ADHD! I like coffee and sweets, and I think that's why I have anxiety and diabetes as well. But there's more to that, really. I also have bipolar II disorder and a bunch of other illnesses. 風山 RK I take a lot of meds. Meds to keep me focused, keep my heart rate and blood pressure down, and lessen period pain.'

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Our Evolution as Lovers of Our Ever-Changing Selves

Love evolves, 

and every day, I find

new ways

to love the new version of you;

new versions of us. 

While cherishing all

the ways we were

and not anymore,

all the things we adopt

and let go about ourselves,

we find ourselves embracing

what we’ve become

together. 

We passed

the previous tests

in flying colors,

even if we didn’t always take

the most ideal path;

we’ve created

solutions 

tailored just for us.

Forget the numbers;

we don’t need to know the odds. 

We have our hands

to guide us

where we want them to land. 

And I will always

find yours in the dark. 

I’ve memorized the places

you take to hiding

when this world becomes

too much.

I know where to wait,

keeping the lamp of faith

lit outside the tunnel. 

Because I know

you’ll come out of it

looking for me

to be by my side

in our evolution as lovers

of our ever-changing selves. 

Our Evolution as Lovers of Our Ever-Changing Selves

27 October 2024