Hiwaga is mostly nonsensical sap

Hiwaga; Ang Paglalakbay sa Hiwaga ng Buhay is about a faith healer woman who receives her power from nature spirits. Although they pray to God (?) or something, they mix pagan beliefs into the whole mix, which is kind of the norm for a lot of people. 

She takes care of four children; John Estrada (no relation to the actor), Lorraine, Hannah and Princess. Their mother teaches them the title song (which they master, probably with blending techniques,) after only hearing it once. Because, apparently, why not. The film makes the lazy narrative decision to let the mom do the character establishment by enumerating the main characters' names and all their positive qualities through dialogue, something that no human being would do in real life.

Predictably, the mother dies, and the children go through what can only be called the surefire go-to talent portion shtick for contestants of That's My Boy and Little Miss Philippines: acting as if their mother had died. Of course, she doesn't die immediately, as they bring her to the mountain because she needs to drink the healing water or something. She dies anyway because apparently that shit don't work if you're actually dying.

The four kids are separated but eventually reunited through rather serendipitous means, mostly through the power of Facebook stalking and the titular song, which, in the course of viewing this movie, you will hear approximately 9000 times (gross estimate.)

The movie isn't really compelling, and the majority of its running time is dreadfully boring. For most of the middle half of the film it's boring, inconsequential stuff about a high school trip to the mountains. Here, John Estrada goes to the place where he grew up and things happen. None of the other characters in this trip are of any consequence, and they are ignored later on. The nature spirits also make an appearance, but are also quickly ignored as the film goes on. (They aren't even in the finale.)

As the poster politely tells us, the entire film is based on the song by "Sir RCA", who directed this film. To be fair, it's slightly catchy. But to make up a story about faith healers and separated orphans from the song requires one hell of an imagination, because even the lyrics have barely anything to do with the plot of this film.

Hiwaga is not a very good film, but it's not as bad as some of the other garbage I saw this year. It seems to be a showcase of talent for all of the kids working under the talent agency that produced the film. This is not an uncommon occurrence, as it was also done with films like Dota: Nakakabaliw (okay, probably not the best comparison). But, like I said, the end product isn't very good. It's all sappy drama without rhyme or reason and characters that I don't really care about, based on a largely nonsensical story.