Tao Bong is Manuel Elizade, a wealthy young Philippine businessman who got his nickname from the poor primitive peoples whom he has helped. What happens to primitive men and women when so-called civilisation encroaches upon their territory is well known: they are badgered, exploited, hunted like animals - at best enslaved and frequently exterminated. But not if Manuel Elizade can prevent it, even though it frequently means at the risk of his life.