The title is a verdict from the Book of Daniel written on Belshazzar’s wall: “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found lacking”. The first scene is an abortion under a picture of the Sacred Heart. At the edge of the town, a leper and a madwoman keep the only honest house in it. A boy watches them; he is the son of the town’s best man, which is the problem. The stones teach him more than the sermons do. The film was made independently in 1974, under martial law, and its success begot Maynila and a braver decade. The censors saw a melodrama. The town on the scales is every town.