2 Valid IDs Confirmed That Time is Gold

Cinemalaya entry 2 Valid IDs checked a lot of boxes when we’re talking about reflecting Filipino realities, bringing us to a question: is this a film, or a documented everyday life of the Filipino people?

Words Gerie Marie Consolacion
Art by Jade Dorado
August 17, 2026

Whenever you ask someone what their favorite motto is, they’ll blurt out without hesitation, “Time is gold.”

This catchy phrase has been engraved in the Filipino mind. We say it casually, repeatedly, almost automatically. But realizing it now, do Filipino people really understand what that phrase means?

I am guilty too. I find myself blurting out this phrase over and over again, only to stop and ask myself: do I really understand what that means?

Because I think not.

Because if I really understood that phrase, I should know that it is not simply about being productive or using my time wisely, it is heavier than that.

And having time is a privilege.

Filipinos are the happiest people

The story revolves around two prominent comedians in the Philippine entertainment industry namely Pokwang or better known as her actress name Marietta Subong, Joey Marquez, and versatile actors Meryll Soriano and Zaijan Jaranilla.

*Actors Marietta Subong, Joey Marquez, and Zaijan Jaranilla | Photo from Cinemalaya*

Can you imagine a film this heavy, with actors portrayed by the same people who make us laugh uncontrollably with their personalities off camera?

It really amazes me how comedians are great actors when given a dramatic film.

We’re still surprised when the funny person turns in a devastatingly serious performance. We’re too quick to put people in boxes, forgetting that the same instinct that makes someone brilliant at comedy can make them just as powerful in silence and restraint.

Sometimes, the people who make us laugh understand sadness the deepest. Because behind every jester, there is a pessimistic Pierrot.

*Actress Marietta Subong | Photo from Cinemalaya*

Maybe that is also something distinctly Filipino. We learned to laugh even when there is nothing funny left to laugh about.

We make jokes while waiting in line, we laugh inside hospitals, we laugh while commuting through traffic, we laugh when our salaries are not enough, when our government fails us, when we are tired, when we are angry, and sometimes, when we have no other way to survive the weight of what is happening around us.

Perhaps that is why seeing these comedians in a film this heavy feels so familiar. Because Filipinos have always been good at making tragedy look bearable.

Is everything illegal, ethical?

When our own system tells us that certain things are illegal and forbidden to do, we, the working class, often obey it. Because it is the law, and we must abide by it—or else, we’ll get punished.

But this film is a mirror to the realities of the Filipino people.

When the main character, Sylvia, is trying to get her two valid IDs despite being poor, she fights. She lines up. She waits for almost two weeks just to get something that should have been hers in the first place.

And not having to stand in line is a privilege. Because while some people are free to walk past it, others spend their lives waiting, struggling, and swallowing their dignity just to receive what should have been theirs all along.

And because of the bureaucracy and bureaucratic processes that still persist inside government offices, every minute spent inside the corners of these old buildings becomes gold.

How can a working person who has to work 24/7 just to earn enough money for everyday food and medicine afford to lose hours, days, even weeks when every minute counts?

*Still from Official 2 Valid IDs Trailer via YouTube*

For someone who has money, a day wasted can be an inconvenience. For someone who is poor, a day wasted can mean a missed meal, it can mean medicine that was never bought, it can mean a day’s wage that was never earned, and it can mean another problem waiting at home.

A delay in the process because of those who skip the line because they have the power and connections inside is part of what slowly kills the person—and, in a larger sense, the democracy in the country.

Because when the system favors those who know someone, those who can pay, and those who can make one phone call to move ahead, what happens to the person who has nothing but their patience?

Thus, between the working class, the lawmakers, and the people inside government agencies, who’s more ethical?

What age should we get or complete our valid IDs?

Today’s generation is trying to complete their IDs right after college graduation. We’re trying to line up, fill out a lot of membership forms, show up for biometrics, and endure the never-ending commute. It costs us a lot—not only money, but time and energy.

Through this movie, a new realization arises: there are some people who reach their senior years owning just one ID. Not even a primary one.

That alone should speak to how anti-poor the system our government has built is.

Because what happens when we reach the position that the main character experiences?

You line up, you wait, you spend money you cannot afford to spend, you sacrifice days you cannot afford to lose, and in the end, you discover that the ID you have carried all your life cannot even save you.

What else do you have?

Borrowing the line from the movie, “Dyan na lang tayo umaasa, sa awa ng Diyos.”

Because that’s what they only have left.

Hope, faith, and the mercy of a system that has already proven that it does not care enough.

Are we really watching a film?

Every scene is relatable. The endless ride inside the jeepney, waiting in line for hours only to end up doing what’s needed in just 15 minutes, the packed hospitals, the exhaustion, the quiet acceptance of things that should make us furious, and the enduring of what bothers us because there are always bigger problems that we need to face.

As a Filipino, every day is a battle.

It also shows the rotten system we have in the medical field: public hospitals not receiving enough funds, doctors who arrive late, and on the bright side, the camaraderie inside hospital wards.

Because what else do those people have?

Only the people inside the same ward can understand them because they’re all victims of the same rotten system.

And when Sylvia lined up for weeks just to have her husband, Ramon, get his checkup with the doctor, only to find out that the doctor had left without seeing all their patients, the nurse told them to wait for another time.

Another day. Another line. Another sacrifice. Another hour that they cannot get back.

But time is indeed gold for people who aren’t privileged enough.

“Hindi nakakasakit ng galing ang pasensya,” a line that feels like a slap in the face.

Because when you have been forced to be patient for so long, patience stops becoming a virtue, it becomes survival.

And when survival becomes a routine, injustice slowly becomes a norm. Which should never be.

The heaviest realization after watching this film?

People who have money can call this an entertainment. They can sit inside a cinema, watch the credits roll, discuss the cinematography, praise the performances, and go home.

But do they even have a clue that it may be entertainment for them, while for someone else, this is their day-to-day life?

For some, the film ends when the lights turn on. For others, the film does not end, they go back to the same government office. The same hospital. The same jeepney. The same line. The same waiting. The same system.

Yet, this film emphasized that time is gold in a country like ours, not because we should always be productive, not because every second should be spent working. But because there are Filipinos who cannot afford to waste a single second.

The time we spend waiting for government services, the time we spend waiting for doctors, the time we spend commuting, the time we spend trying to get documents that should have been accessible in the first place, and the time we spend trying to prove that we exist.

All of it has a cost.

And the people who pay the highest price are often the people who can afford it the least.

The time we spent trying to understand, giving the benefit of the doubt to the administration or the government we have—they teach us things.

They taught us how to be mad, how to be frustrated, how to question, how to recognize the unfairness of the system they built.

And with their having no care for the people they should be serving, they did not realize that we also learned something else.

We learned how to rise, how to fight back, how to question what we were told to accept, and how to reclaim what is ours.

This film shook us—not simply to make us feel angry, but to keep us awake.

Awake to the reality that the rot in the government does not stay inside government offices.
It seeps into hospitals, into our transportation system, into our work, into our homes, into the way we live, into the way we understand patience, and into the way we measure our time.

And perhaps that is the cruelest thing 2 Valid IDs tells us: for some people, time is gold.

But for others, time is something they are forced to give away just to survive.

And when a country keeps asking its people to wait, to understand, to be patient, to come back tomorrow, to fall in line, to try again—at what point does patience stop being patience, at what point does waiting become oppression?

And at what point do we finally realize that the time being taken from us is a life we will never get back?

2 Valid IDs Confirmed That Time is Gold

Jewels, Representations, and Symbols