Ma'Rosa and the Economy of Corruption

Ma'Rosa starts off with a lengthy sequence of buying, haggling and selling, as Rosa (Jacklyn Jose) interacts with the people of her neighborhood, not only as the proprietor of the local sari-sari store, but also as a small time drug dealer. 

And the nature of transactions, both monetary and social, underline the point of Ma'Rosa: it is not simply a treatise on the nature of the country's drug marketplace, it is an exploration of the social structures that enable this marketplace to exist in the first place. To say that the film is simply about drugs fails to see its underlying themes. It's about the culture of corruption in Philippine society, and how the transactions we make with people turn our society into a twisted flea market of human lives and dignity, a cesspool where the powerful and the oppressed engage in a warped capitalist trade fueled by greed and money.

Rosa and her husband are quickly arrested by the police, and this is where the true meat of the story begins. Instead of properly arresting the couple, they are given a deal to rat out higher level members of their organization in exchange for their freedom.

"Baka pwede naman nating pagusapan ito" (maybe we can talk about this) is a phrase found in almost every Filipino's armory of words, spanning all social classes. It's one of the lynchpins of a culture that prefers 'areglo' and compromise instead of prolonging an uncomfortable situation, and it digs its rotten roots into every situation in this film. And why does this particular aspect of Filipino culture flourish? There is no single cause, but Ma'Rosa shows a few interrelated factors to us through its situations. 

Firstly, there is a certain discontent with the slow, lumbering hulk of bureaucracy and red tape; and this is the same impatience that leads us to execute 'criminals' without due process, and try and shame people on social media instead of going to the inefficient courts. Second, in all of the characters of the film, there is the sheer will to survive in a world that has deemed survival of the fittest the one true law above all, and where everyone is equal, but some people are more equal than others. Rosa and her children make almost every possible sacrifice to get out of their situation: their minds, bodies, their ideals and principles. And finally, as we learn that Rosa and her family is just one link in a chain of victims, the nature of our very culture encourages us to extend the chain instead of breaking it.

Rosa's choice to engage in the drug trade also reflects this notion of survival, and it is felt in Jacklyn Jose's actions throughout the film. Every action she makes is calculated for the survival of her family. She knows that she is engaged in illegal activities, but she accepts that as her fate. And yet twice in the film, during her arrest and at the very end of the film, we see her looking at a family engaged in honest work. Perhaps it is a look of temptation, or perhaps it is one of regret. In my (perhaps overly optimistic) interpretation: she is contemplating the possibility of an honest life. But the look of uncertainty she gives after that implies a future that is rocky and uncertain.