In the Cordilleras in Northern Philippines, desperate to save his Igorot tribe parish from being displaced by a government dam project, Father Carlo Paterno is forced to join the Communist New People's Army. His best friend, Julius Madrigal, a renegade from the Philippine Armed Forces joins the priest in the struggle. Amidst interludes of romance and tribal cultural immersions in the hinterlands, the priest and the renegade suffer the rigors of the harshness of life in the mountains, ambuscades of the enemy, and a betrayal.