The divine all the while does not demand proof, but asks merely to be a mystery.

I shall see only in so far as I have faith. Faith means ‘insight.’ Given that gift, I am drawn to God giving himself to me in Christ through the Spirit. The blessing or eyesight enables me to see the traffic, the people and the shrine. By itself, it is not enough to see who is there in the persons of the people – a community called by God – , Our Lady and her Son. Eyesight means I look from the outside. The intuitive insight of faith enables me to see from inside the situation. There is no substitute for authentic faith. Without it, I am blind to who is there.

The Spaniards brought Christianity to the Philippines in the 16th Century. Ribamontan said the rosary became popular there after its powers were credited with turning back the Dutch, who tried to invade the islands in the 1700s.

Digital is liberation theology. Now we can have our own media. The internet is so free, the camera is so free.

Digital changes everything. You own the brush now, you own the gun, unlike before, where it was all owned by the studio. Now it is all yours. It is so free now. I can finish one whole film inside this room. We were flooded here four days ago because of the last typhoon, and the water went up to our ankles. But we were still able to finish the film. We do not depend on film studios and capitalists anymore. This is liberation cinema now. We can destroy governments now because of digital.

In the Philippine archipelago, nature provided everything, until the concept of property came with the Spanish colonizers. Then the capitalist order took control. I have developed my aesthetic framework around the idea that we Filipinos are governed by nature. The concept of time was introduced to us when the Spaniards came. We had to do oracion at six o'clock, start work at seven. Before it was free, it was Malay.