What would you do when you receive a tip that your missing mother might actually still be alive, but you had to travel to a mysterious island in the middle of the ocean to find her? That’s the predicament at the heart of Balaraw, Netflix Philippines’ newest Filipino series that centers on Sabina, a woman who travels to the mystical island of Balaraw in hopes of rescuing her mother, Rebecca (Agot Isidro).
For Janine Gutierrez, who plays the lead role of Sabina, it was an adventure she gladly hopped on. No stranger to dramatic and suspenseful projects, Gutierrez further proves her acting prowess while also exploring new sides of her craft in a six-episode series chock-full of suspense and surprises.
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Janine Gutierrez on Saying Yes to Balaraw
In Balaraw, Gutierrez plays a woman scarred by the void left by her missing mother. In her desperation to reunite with her mother, she takes the risk to travel to a mysterious island where what awaits her is far more than what she could imagine. It’s a plot that easily lends itself to mystery and thrills, and for Gutierrez, it felt like an easy yes to join Rae Red’s newest series. “Well, the first time I heard of [Balaraw] was when Bianca [Balbuena], the producer, reached out to me, and I know the whole team because it’s the team I worked with in the film Babae at Baril,” she tells MEGA.
Once she dug deeper into what the show was about, Gutierrez quickly found herself even more enamoured by the project. “I got the entire deck and got to talk to them about what Balaraw is about, and the scale of the story, and just the layers of mystery and thriller. At the same time, it’s a family drama, all within the genre of Filipino folklore.”
What is also interesting about Balaraw is that it serves as the reunion project between Gutierrez and the series’ writer and director Rae Red, who previously worked together on Babae at Baril. The gritty drama served as a breakout project for both involved, especially Gutierrez, as it earned her critical acclaim, Best Actress wins from Gawad Urian and FAMAS, and established her as a serious actress. So, the chance to do it all again, not just with Red but also many of the original crew, and this time in a series format, was an exciting opportunity for Gutierrez.
“She really changed my life. Doing Babae at Baril, I feel, changed the trajectory of my career, and I owe her a lot for casting me in that. I super admire her, and I think she’s so talented, and I love her language and how she includes important themes in her work.” She adds, ‘I’m happy to be reunited with them. And I’m so happy that I got to be a part of it.”
Playing the Multi-Dimensional Woman That Is Sabina
Balaraw is focused on Sabina’s journey to find her mother, and as the center of it, Gutierrez had to do a lot for the series, physically and emotioanlly. Just like the mysterious island it’s set on, Sabina secrets to uncover and revelations to expose. It’s an ambitious project in scale, story, and scope that slowly unravels the more you get into it.
But it was more fun than work for her, especially in the world the production team built for the show that added to the immersion. “Stepping onto set, even from the first day, the scale and the magnitude of not just the story but the sets, the production design. It’s the biggest set that I’ve been on, and I really felt thrust into the world of Balaraw just by being on the set.”
However, it wasn’t just the physicality that the role required of Gutierrez, but also embodying a different kind of character than she’s not used to playing: a queer woman in a relationship. In the show, Sabina is in a relationship with Bulak (Charlie Dizon), and the two find themselves relying on each other heavily as the series’ events progress.
While this is not the first time Gutierrez has played a queer woman, this is her first project with Dizon, an actress she’s been wanting to share the screen with. “I’m so happy because I’ve always wanted to work with Charlie, and I wouldn’t have imagined that this would be our roles in a project together,” shares Gutierrez. “I would always think, how can we work together? So when this opportunity came, and then we’re a couple, I was super, super excited about that.”
It was one of the first things people noticed when the first scene dropped last February. It is still, after all, rare to see local media have a queer female couple have a prominent part in the story, especially one that is a mystery-thriller. But for Gutierrez, as exciting as it is for her to work with DIzon, and in a couple role no less, she points out that the wlw relationship between Sabina and Bulak is not something the series parades around, and that’s fine.
“It’s nice because it’s not like we give emphasis on our relationship being anything different or anything special as it would be in any other show,” the actress says. “It just so happens that we’re a couple, but it’s not like it’s the theme of the story. It’s just our relationship within a big, big story. And it’s nice to see that normalized in a Filipino series.”
What to Expect From the Mysterious World of Balaraw
At first glance, Balaraw is a mystery-thriller through the lens of Filipino folklore. And for the most part, the show is that. But Balaraw also promises to be a lot of other things, one of those being a female-centric tale of women who come together during peril. “I’m happy to be in projects that always champion women’s empowerment and different kinds of women and the layers of what it is to be a woman,” Gutierrez says.
There’s a lot more to the show as viewers will, among other things, explore different plotlines that weave into issues and themes affecting women, and not just those from a mythological island. As Gutierrez teases, “Like for Rebecca as a mother and then Sabina as a daughter and then like in a relationship and how being a woman affects your life in different circumstances. And in this case, Balaraw is an island in the middle of nowhere, and there’s still that patriarchy that affects the dynamics of the character. So it’s fun to do exciting roles in a very female-centric project.”
Ultimately, as Balaraw approaches its appropriately Halloween-coded release date of October 29, Gutierrez hopes viewers don’t add the show to their watchlist just because it’s spooky season, but because it’s a fun Filipino series that punches above its weight to tell a twisty story. As she puts it, “Every episode is a cliffhanger. You don’t know what’s going to happen next. The story is something that hasn’t been done before. And it’s something that we can be proud of as Filipinos. We all know how layered our mythology and Filipino folklore is. So it’s so exciting to get to share that on a global platform. And I hope everybody enjoys it.”
Balaraw begins streaming on Netflix on October 29.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Featured Image and Photos: Courtesy of Netflix
Frequently Asked Questions
Balaraw is a six-episode Netflix Philippines series written and directed by Rae Red. Sabina travels to the mystical island of Balaraw after learning her missing mother, Rebecca, may still be alive, in a story blending mystery, thriller, and Filipino folklore.
Balaraw begins streaming on Netflix on October 29, 2026, timed to the Halloween season. The six-episode Filipino series draws on Philippine mythology, and Janine Gutierrez describes every episode as a cliffhanger.
Janine Gutierrez stars as Sabina, with Agot Isidro as her missing mother, Rebecca, and Charlie Dizon as Bulak, Sabina’s partner. Rae Red writes and directs, reuniting with Gutierrez after Babae at Baril.
Janine Gutierrez and Rae Red previously collaborated on the film Babae at Baril, which earned Gutierrez Best Actress wins from Gawad Urian and FAMAS. She credits the film with changing the trajectory of her career.
Yes, Sabina is in a relationship with Bulak, played by Charlie Dizon. Gutierrez says the series does not treat the relationship as its central theme, presenting it as one part of a larger mystery-thriller story.
