Binitay | Binitay Documentary

April 11, 2016

Oral history and Lineage

As the years pass I’ve grown fascinated with this relationship and kinship of my biological family back home. After building my relationship with my biological extended relatives through the power of Skype video chats, Facebook messenger, and Viber calls, it’s my recent trip in May, 2015 where staying with my biological cousins’ place in Caduawan and Danao for five weeks found me most intrigued with this post-reunion and birth family search.

It is through the intergenerational dialogue and spending time with my biological relatives that I learned more about myself and had to unlearn in my case study papers that I was a “foundling”. When speaking with my 94 year old lola at the time, I asked her if I was given a birth name by my mother. She replied, “Isagani”.

A friend of mine who works for the InterCountry Adoption Board (ICAB) -Philippines told me the translation of my name. She said it translates from Bisaya; one of the major language groups in the Philippines, where “Isa” means one or only one and “Gani” in the Bisayan language is a term for affirmation or a yes. So the name all together loosely means “Yes you are my only one” or “Yes you are my one and only”

Each discovery while large or small helps me piece back together a part of my ethnic cultural identity which I had lost, because it is too easy to learn what people call “American” or “Western” culture when you’re surrounded by it everywhere you go and have nothing that reflects your own roots. Documenting this experience makes these experiences immortal allowing me to physically reflect upon it.

Help me continue to document these stories in my next film as I put together these collective narrative of my biological family.

I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Indiegogo campaign at https://igg.me/at/OnceUponAnOchia-/x

–> Follow me on twitter at https://twitter.com/binitaydoc

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

July 29, 2013

Sulat. (to write)

This was a gift from a close friend of mine. I’m thankful she bought this for me. I’m planning on documenting anything that first comes to mind and whatever topics they may be. Hopefully extending my thoughts through a medium of ink and paper will unravel the ball of yarn in my head and sort out every concious and subconscious spark. I hope to include a majority if not all of these things in my documentary if they pertain to what I will be communicating and the journey that unfolds before me.

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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July 10, 2013July 10, 2013

Umbilical Cord

[2 hours left for my Kickstarter Campaign]

“To find the umbilical cord, one must first go back into the womb.” p. 84 BABAYLAN, (Mendoza-Strobel)

When I was found, my umbilical cord was infected. Despite the infected umbilical cord, I was in good health condition. A trained “hilot” named Aleja, was called to the necessary cutting of the umbilical cord.

Although my umbilical cord has been infected and cut, it doesn’t sever my ties back to where I came from. This will be my journey going “back into darkness into intervals of pain and joy, denial, discovery, and reconciliation.” (Angel Velasco Shaw)

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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July 9, 2013

Makibaka

[22 hours left for my Kickstarter Campaign]

Kadtong dili molingi sa gigikanan, dili makaabot sa gipadulongan. (Cebuano Version)
“He who does not look back from where he came will never reach his destination.” -Jose Rizal

Here is my interpretation of looking back at where I came from. I edited in and faded my passport picture. This is the earliest picture of me before my adoption. Although adoption may not be perfect, “Binitay: Journey of a Filipino Adoptee” will be taking the darkness and shedding light on it.

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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July 6, 2013July 6, 2013

Shared Self

[4 days left for my Kickstarter Campaign]

I was at work and was waiting on a customer a year ago. She comes in pretty often with her son and daughter. I found out later after politely asking her if they were adopted because both her and husband are white Caucasian while here children are Latino. I find out before she left that she adopted them from Guatemala.

When she told me that they were adopted I told her I was too. She then asked from where and how old I was when I was adopted and I told her that I was adopted from the Philippines at the age of three. She then told her son that I was adopted too and I thought it was cute because he asked if I was Guatemalan as well. She then told him “Not all adopted children are Guatemalan”, since his adopted sister is from Guatemala as well and I believe they are biological siblings.

This made me think of past times that I was working and she has come in, her adoptive son that is probably around six years old, would stare at me all the time. I told her how he would do that after today and also noted that he probably thought I was Guatemalan too. She smiled back and told me, “Yeah I think he looks for other people who look like him as well”.

Many flashbacks of when I was his age came into existence and when I would subconsciously look for other people who were like me or looked like me too.

Who I am is more than what reflects back at me in the mirror. I questioned that for 17 years of my life and in search for answers.

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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