Aguila (1980)

Daniel Aguila, a Filipino born in 1892, confronts and recoils from the weakness he sees among Filipinos at critical periods in our history. As a boy, he sees his revolucionario father betrayed by the man who eventually becomes his stepfather. As a young officer in Mindanao, he protects his stepfather who has come to grab lands from the Muslims, who retaliate by killing his mother and step-brother. He also has a son by a Muslim lass, whom he is forbidden to marry. As a PC officer, he gets involved in a legal tussle between an anti-American mass religious sect and the pro-American town-elite. He then meets a fast-talking iady iawyer, whom he eventually marries. As a USAFFE officer, he allies with a Huk leader to get much-needed supplies in a Japanese-held town but sees this leader treacherously captured by the Americans. In his middle age, he keeps a mistress and sees his eldest son turn into a corrupt senator, who uses blackmail to silence an activist group that exposes his corruption. In his old age, he leaves his family to work for the Aetas in the mountains.