Paul Mathews

A brutal but uplifting story of survival. Cielo, a Filipina sex-worker, works hard just to survive. But she would not even be a footnote in the mainstream telling of poverty in the Philippines. She would have been overlooked because she's a woman, a puta, and poor. Nonetheless, her life is a lens through which we can clearly view the horrors of neo-colonialism and the brutality of patronage that bankroll poverty, exploitation, and extra judicial killings.
Even though Cielo is seemingly trapped in a cycle of puppetry, subject to the string-pulling of the wealthy Rodrigo Tiago, she realizes a means of retribution, freedom and justice. Tiago's immersion in illegal activities exposes him to fatal ruin. Born in the mountains, raised in the slums, having lost her job and loved ones, Cielo learns from a friend how to use, of necessity, her body in performative ways.
Facing her own troubled past, she thus manipulates Andre, Tiago's nephew and troll-like accountant, to bring down the house of Tiago. By a final quirk of nature the Spirit of poverty is purged.