Bacolod filmmaker wins 4th Best Director award for “Sa Pwesto ni Pistong”

Wazzup Pilipinas?!

Bacolod filmmaker Vincent Joseph Entuna continues his notable achievement in Philippine cinema, taking home the Best Director prize for the film “Sa Pwesto ni Pistong” (The Barber's Chair) in the Philippine Shorts category of Sagay City’s Margaha Film Festival.

This latest victory marks a historic milestone for Entuna, serving as his fourth award of the same nature in a streak that began at the Bacolod Film Festival in 2024, where the short film also won Best Picture and Best Screenplay.

“Sa Pwesto ni Pistong” resonated with both the jury and the audience, praised for its nuanced storytelling, evocative visual language, and its profound exploration of local narratives. The film’s success at Margaha reinforces Entuna’s reputation as a vital voice in Negrense filmmaking.

Since his breakout win in 2024, Entuna has maintained an unprecedented momentum with his ability to blend authentic cultural themes with sophisticated cinematic techniques.

In a statement, Entuna expressed his appreciation, “Salamat guid Sine Margaha kag mga Sagaynon sa pagbugay sa amon sang oppurtunidad na maisturya namon sina Pistong kag sang mga tawo na pilit ginakalimtan.” (“Thank you very much, Sine Margaha and the people of Sagay, for blessing us with the opportunity to tell the story of Pistong and the people who are being forced into oblivion.”)

The award-winning filmmaker also dedicated this milestone to his “constant collaborators” who were instrumental in bringing the film’s vision to life: director of photography and producer Joshua Fabricante and assistant director Gian Paulo Suarez.

In the film, which has been recognized for its technical and narrative skill, a humble barber navigates a tumultuous era while serving a diverse array of customers including a prominent haciendero and an idealistic nephew.

Entuna also won Best Director for “Sa Pwesto ni Pistong” at the Active Vista Human Rights Film Festival and PangaSine Film Festival in 2025.

The Margaha Film Festival is a premier platform for cinematic storytelling in Sagay City, celebrated for its focus on heritage, environment, and the unique coastal identity of the region.

“As Sagay City continues to envision itself as the epicenter of arts and culture in Northern Negros, Margaha stands as one of its cultural pillars, nurturing filmmakers, expanding audiences, and creating a space where local and regional voices are valued and heard,” Festival Director Helen Arguelles-Cutillar stressed.

By honoring filmmakers like Entuna, the festival continues to bridge the gap between local talent and national recognition.

An academic and a storyteller, Entuna is a faculty member at Mapúa University’s School of Multimedia and Digital Arts (SoMDA) and Lyceum of the Philippines University Manila’s Broadcasting Communication Journalism and Multimedia Arts (BCJMMA) program.

A graduate of the UP Film Institute and a current MA Araling Filipino student at De La Salle University Manila, his work continues to explore Negrense history, culture, and social advocacy.

The Silent Valleys of Bajaur: A Natural Heritage on the Brink

Wazzup Pilipinas!? 

In the rugged, sun-drenched highlands of Pakistan’s Bajaur District, the air was once thick with the calls of migratory birds and the heavy scent of pine. Today, that air is eerily quiet. The mountains, once the domain of predators and the playground of vast herds, have become a theater of disappearance.

What was once a thriving ecosystem is now a landscape of ghosts, where the only thing more abundant than the rocky terrain are the memories of the elders who remember when the wild was truly wild.

The Echoes of Giants: Memories of the Elders

For eighty-five-year-old Malik Haroon Khan, the history of Bajaur is written in the tracks of animals that no longer exist. Standing in Dele village, he recalls a childhood where the line between civilization and the wild was razor-thin.

"Bears were so common in our village that we could not go into the fields alone," Malik recalls.

He speaks of a time when leopards prowled the shadows of the ravines, wolves howled through the nights, and the forests teemed with monkeys, jackals, and porcupines. These weren't just stories; they were a way of life. He tells of a child once injured in a bear attack, and a friend who stood face-to-face with a leopard in a valley—a standoff that ended only when the great cat turned and melted back into the brush.

Today, those predators are gone. The Snow Leopard, last seen in the Serisar forest in 1998, and the Black Bear have vanished from the local maps, leaving behind a void that no amount of modern development can fill.

A Twenty-Year Freefall: The Mechanics of Extinction

The decline has been swift and brutal. Over the last two decades, a "perfect storm" of human interference and environmental collapse has stripped Bajaur of its biodiversity. Experts point to three primary killers:

Illegal Hunting: The transition from traditional tracking to "electronic warfare"—using recorded bird calls and massive net strips—has decimated local populations.

Climate Stress: Pakistan ranks 7th among the most climate-vulnerable nations. Changing snowfall patterns and drying river systems have turned lush habitats into arid dust bowls.

Habitat Fragmentation: As the human population grows, the "deserts and deep ravines" Malik Haroon Khan once roamed have been sliced up by roads and settlements.

The Tragedy of the Quail and the Vulture

The scale of the loss is perhaps best measured by Abdul Rauf Khan, known locally as "Multan Baba." A hunter for fifty years, he remembers the "Quail Fairs" of Khar Tehsil where birds were once caught by the hundreds.

"Ten years ago, a hunter could catch 300 quails in a season," Rauf says. "Last year, I caught only two."

The disappearance extends to the skies as well. Seventy-five-year-old Muhammad Muzaffar Khan recounts an encounter from the 1970s with a Qajirbaz—the legendary large vulture of the Charmang Valley. He once tried to catch one by the legs, only to be dragged across a field by the powerful bird. Now, the skies are empty; the vultures have been completely wiped out by habitat loss and shifting environmental conditions.

The Cost of Silence: Ecology vs. Economy

Wildlife is more than just a collection of animals; it is a global economic engine. While nations like Kenya and Vietnam have turned wildlife conservation into multi-million dollar tourism industries, Bajaur’s natural assets are slipping away.

Muhammad Safdar, a wildlife expert, notes a staggering statistic: migratory birds arriving from Central Asia have plummeted from millions to a mere few thousand. When the birds stop coming, the forests stop regenerating, and the beauty that draws the world to a region dies with them.

Locally Extinct

Black Bear, Common Leopard, Wild Cat, Vultures

Endangered / Struggling

Fox, Jackal, Wild Rooster, Sable

Vanishing Migrants

Quail, Falcon, Chakor, Sisai

A Flicker of Hope: The Fight for the Future

Despite the grim outlook, the tide is beginning to turn—slowly. The Wildlife Department of Bajaur has begun forming community-based conservation committees in Mamond, Arang, and Salarzai.

There are small victories:

The Kaimur Rescue: Recently, local residents successfully rescued a gray deer near Kaimur Mountain, choosing protection over the hunt.

Protected Zones: Hunting is now strictly prohibited in specific breeding zones in the Barang and Salarzai valleys.

Education: Social organizers like Muhammad Tayyab are taking the message to schools, teaching the next generation that a forest without animals is just a collection of wood.

The Final Hour

The 2016 Arang Valley survey confirmed what the elders feared: the Markhor and Snow Wolf are gone. Zoologist Imdad Khan warns that for the remaining species—the foxes and the wild roosters—time is a luxury they don't have.

Bajaur stands at a crossroads. It can either become a silent monument to what was lost, or it can be the place where Pakistan proves that nature can be brought back from the brink. For Malik Haroon Khan and the children of Dele village, the hope is that the next leopard sighting won't be a memory, but a reality.

The New Smoke: Unmasking the Great Climate Deception

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For decades, a silent war has been waged not just in the atmosphere, but in the minds of the public. It is a conflict where the primary weapon is not fire or flood, but disinformation. The fossil fuel industry, following a playbook written in the smoke-filled boardrooms of Big Tobacco, has spent billions to confuse, deflect, and delay.

But a formidable front is rising to meet them: the white-coated ranks of the global health community.

A Legacy of Deceit: The Tobacco Blueprint

To understand the current crisis, we must look back at one of the greatest public health victories in history. For half a century, the tobacco industry manipulated science to hide a simple truth: cigarettes kill. They funded "independent" studies to cast doubt, hired charismatic experts to muddy the waters, and reframed a lethal addiction as a matter of personal "choice."

The fossil fuel industry is now using these same "merchants of doubt" tactics. By casting uncertainty on climate science and downplaying the immediate respiratory and cardiovascular risks of fossil fuel combustion, they have successfully stalled policy for generations.

The Doctor’s Mandate: Truth as Medicine

Health professionals are among the most trusted figures in society. When a doctor speaks about the risks of a localized smog outbreak or the rising heat-stroke statistics in their community, people listen. This trust is now a critical battlefield.

The imperative is clear: health advocates must move beyond the clinic and into the public square. The fight requires a multi-pronged strategy rooted in transparency and accountability:

Scientific Integrity: We must demand a "firewall" between fossil fuel funding and public health research to ensure data remains untainted by corporate interests.

The Polluter Pays: Legal frameworks must be strengthened to hold industries financially responsible for the health "externalities"—the asthma, the heart disease, and the heat-related deaths—caused by their products.

Public Awareness: We must shift the narrative. This isn't just about melting glaciers; it’s about the air in a child’s lungs. Highlighting the immediate health "co-benefits" of renewable energy—like cleaner air and lower healthcare costs—makes the transition a personal win for every family.

The Economic Mirage

The industry often argues that fossil fuels are the only path to economic stability and energy access. However, this is an economic mirage. Meeting the targets of the Paris Agreement isn't just an environmental goal; it is a fiscal necessity. By mid-century, the transition could save millions of lives and trillions of dollars in avoided healthcare costs.

In energy-impoverished regions, leapfrogging to renewable micro-grids offers a more stable, healthier, and more equitable path to development than the centralized, polluting infrastructure of the past.

A Prescription for the Future

The stakes could not be higher. Just as the medical community eventually broke the back of the tobacco lobby through unwavering commitment and strict conflict-of-interest policies, so too must we excise fossil fuel interests from the halls of policy-making.

The path forward is paved with evidence-based policy and radical transparency. By unmasking the disinformation, health professionals can lead the way toward a future where "public health" is not just a clinical term, but a global reality.

The cure for climate change starts with the truth.