Banyaga chronicles the lives of three families from times of peace and the Second World War to the tumultuous landscape of the Philippines' New Society and contemporary era. In the late 1920s, enslaved brothers Ah Puy and Ah Kaw meet Ah Tin, Ah Sun, and Ah Beng on a ship bound for Manila. The five ambitious boys find common ground and become sworn brothers. Adapting quickly is imperative to their survival in this harsh, foreign land. Ah Puy and Ah Kaw are sold to a candle maker as replacement sons. To prove worthy of the roof above them, cousins Ah Sun and Ah Tin must learn dye-making under Ah Sun's business-savvy uncle. Ah Beng's estranged father reluctantly trains him to manage their family store.With nothing but grit and a taste for retaliation, they struggle to sit atop the pecking order in a new country that stripped them of their identities.