I-Witness's "Minsan Sa Isang Taon" By Kara David

A beautiful documentary that subliminally projects an irony of life.

"Minsan Sa Isang Taon" (Once A Year), an I-Witness documentary (aired Oct 8, 2012, GMA Network) by Kara David, may look like a simple documentary but it's actually not. Its depth has significant meanings to convey.

Minsan Sa Isang Taon is about an abaca farmer who earns only a thousand pesos once a year from selling abaca fibers. It takes three abaca trees to produce a kilo of abaca fibers. It takes a year to accumulate 20 to 30 kilos of abaca fibers. If the farmer could harvest 25 kilos of abaca fibers a year, he would earn one thousand pesos at ₱40/kg. Little that the farmer knew that the few 100 bills that he had earned the whole year were made of abaca fiber.

The Philippine money must be special considering what it is made of. Sad to say, money is a symbol of wealth enjoyed by a few. What is ironic is that the abaca that the Philippine money is made of mirrors Filipino poverty. 

Hard work is the key to success, so they say. That is hardly believable in the case of the abaca farmer's year-round one-thousand-peso worth hard labour. Somewhere in that hard-work-success adage, something must be missing.

The abaca farmer is surrounded with gifts of nature - hills, trees, unpolluted air. He must be rich. Unfortunately, he and his family gets to taste rice only once a year. If luckier, meat for his kids. 

Actually, the abaca farmer is surrounded by abundance. He only needs to cultivate bright ideas. If only given the proper education and assistance, he doesn't have to wait a year in order to earn a thousand pesos.

---