15-year-old, MANONG is busy working as a sugarcane slasher at the platation. Meanwhile, 9 year-old GINGGING is playing with a makeshift toy car. Manong arrives with a pack filled with food items. Gingging makes a quick dash to help her older brother and calls her mom. Inside the house, they make an inventory of the food items. This is where Gingging offers to quit school and work at the sugarcane plantation like her brother. Manong disapproves leaving 32-year-old NANAY to explain that they have debts to pay, and she needs to finish school. The next day, Gingging, is upset when she wakes up realizing that her older brother has already left without waking her up and bringing her to work as promised. To calm her down, her mother promises to let her tag along when she goes to the field later that day. As promised, Nanay brought her to the sugarcane field and let her watch her brother work. Not content with her role as a spectator, she rushed towards her brother and greets him. Unfortunately, Manong shoos her away to her utter disappointment. The next day, while going home from school, Gingging spots a machete left under a tree. She plays with the cutting tool until the owner arrives and scolds her. She leaves the owner with her own thoughts about why she has the right to be a sugarcane slasher. When she arrives home, she finds Nanay and Manong talking to her brother’s schoolteacher, Ms. Cruz. The teacher is begging Manong to go back to school. The discussion reveals the demise of their father and their mother’s heart condition, reasons why Manong has to quit school and work at the field. Gingging looks for her brother who goes out after he informs his teacher that he is no longer going back to school. She tries to convince her brother to change his mind by insisting that she should handle the work in the field. Unable to contain his frustration, Manong shuts her up and mocks her lack of understanding. Gingging unleashes her frustration on a pile of sugarcane she spotted on her way back home. Eager to prove her strength, she bundles some sugarcane and try to carry them up with her young fragile body. There, she realizes, she is not ready for the job.