Even more surprisingly, the movie also entails equal parts of comedy. Let us take things from the beginning though. The story is based on the actual life of five aging prostitutes who peddled their bodies every night at the long bridge of Bulacan, a province of Central Luzo. Bella owns a house that was left to her by her late husband, but his son, a sinister gay as the protagonists call him, wants to take the house from her, essentially throwing them all on the street. Dalena, whose point of view dictates the story, by day she works as an albularyo traditional healer outside church, but as hooker by nighttime.
However, her past treatment of her daughter has alienated the two, with the latter forbidding her to see her granddaughter, despite the fact that the young girl likes her grandmother. Luningning has a young boyfriend who essentially exploits her for money, while living with another girl. Corazon is senile and spends her time waiting for a man that will never appeal.
Lastly, the younger one, year-old Miriam, works in order to take care of her family, but she realizes that the older she gets the less clients come to her. This, however, is not the worse thing that happens to her, with her arc essentially kickstarting the drama in the movie. Although the movie could easily become a hardcore melodrama, considering the nature and life of the protagonists, Joel Lamagan has managed to induce it with injections of comedy that also derive from the permeating optimism the protagonists share.
This optimism derives from their comradeship, which, even though is tested repeatedly, in the end it is always there. At the same time, and despite the many enemies and the way their families treat them, the five do have a support group around them, which gives them hope in the most dire moments.
At the same time, and in another great aspect, Lamagan implements the stories of the five in order to highlight how Filipino society works, at least in its lower echelons.
