The Philippines is a country with a long history of revolution dating back to Spanish and American colonisation and Japanese occupation. Bitter Rice focuses on the story of Bernabe Buscayno, alias Kommanda Dante, a legendary figure who has devoted his life to the struggle for a free Philippines. Using economic means to fight political ends, Dante formed the People's Livelihood Foundation, a co-operative of rice farmers in Capas. Having seized their land, the PLF then took on the multinational fertiliser companies, the middlemen who market the rice and set the prices and the banks whose interest rates cripple the farmers.

(1989, 60 mins) Produced with the assistance of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

© National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.