This six-panel work by Santiago Bose draws on the folk tradition of ex-voto or retablo painting to update a cartoon by Philippine physician, writer and national hero José Rizal (1861–96) for the era of the AIDS epidemic. Created by Rizal as a young doctor, the original cartoon concerned the inadequacies of folk remedies to combat disease and the need for science-based public welfare. Bose inserts references to the many AIDS quilts created to commemorate its victims, marking the deaths that would be preventable with adequate medical resources and education while providing an outlet for communal grieving. In doing so, Bose adds nuance to Rizal’s iconography of the talismans or amulets and Catholic motifs used in folk healing rituals, drawing out the dimension of their use by the poor as symbols of resistance. Highlighting the inequities of the initial treatment of AIDS, the work also celebrates efforts by the disempowered to empower themselves.