Joseph (Raymart Santiago) is a young doctor who returned to his hometown in the Mountain Province to bury his father, an Ifugao chieftain, who was killed during a tribal dispute. While there, he discovers rich heritage and acquires pride in his being Ifugao. Though the lure of a career in US remains strong, he is unable to resist the urge to help his barrio, which has resisted modern medicine and is now in the midst of a pneumonia epidemic and a civil war.