A young married couple, Maria and Jose (Rosa Rosal and Tony Santos) start life together creating a lanzones orchard in the countryside. Four children are born to the couple – Miguel (Leroy Salvador), Arturo (Carlos Padilla Jr), Angelita (Marita Zobel), and Lito (Danilo Jurado). The eldest, Miguel, is a deaf-mute. Life is good to them and the children grow up and bring joy to the community. But trouble enters their lives when Jose incurs the enmity of Bruno (Joseph de Cordova). Bruno, a widower, is much feared in the village, for it is rumored that he caused the death of his wife. And yet he wants to remarry and is courting Choleng (Mila Ocampo), Jose’s niece. But Choleng avoids Bruno like the plague and one day, in trying to get away from Bruno, Choleng slips and falls off a cliff and dies. The village is outraged and Bruno hides in the mountains. There, he plots his revenge on the village, particularly on Jose’s family. He finds his chance one day when Angelita brings food to her father and brother Arturo while they work in the field. He ambushes the young girl and rapes her. Jose, with the help of the entire village, hunts him down but is shot down in cold blood by Bruno. Meanwhile, Arturo’s mind is preoccupied by the possibilities of life in the city. He dislikes working in the field, while his deaf-mute brother, Miguel, is hardly any help and instead courts a pretty village girl, Gloria (Carmencita Abad). Arturo goes to Manila, dreaming of unimagined riches, but suddenly he returns and he is not alone. A typical Manila hussy is with him, all made up and contemptuous of provincial life. Arturo does not have the riches he promised and instead asks his mother to mortgage their rice fields, which she does. Arturo returns to Manila. Bruno, in the meanwhile, is not through with Maria’s family, and now desires Angelita even more. He flees to another town where a greedy landowner (Mario Roldan) hires him to destroy the potentially rich lanzones harvest that Maria’s family has waited twenty years for. One dark night, Bruno and his men start their work but the family is ready and the entire village comes to their rescue. Miguel, the deaf-mute, being the only man left in the family, faces Bruno bravely and kills the bandit. Arturo, the prodigal son, returns, alone this time and penniless, begging for forgiveness. Unforgiving at first, Miguel, refuses to take him back. But Maria brings about a reconciliation of the two brothers. Peace returns to the family once more and in spite of Jose’s absence, Maria realizes that life indeed must go on. They reap the fruits and blessings of their bountiful land. —Kabayan Central
