On the many islands and languages present in the Philippines, there are a couple of widely accepted words for transgender and transexual — bakla and asog or “tomboy. That suggests that there’s less mussing about with pronouns and somewhat less debate about the legitimacy of such people in the population.

That doesn’t mean discrimination and persecution of the country’s LGBTQ populace doesn’t exist. It just signifies a long-term acknowledgement that such people exist and that even scapegoating politicians have lost any war on their legitimacy before they start it.

“Asog” is a Filipino-Canadian docudrama about a transgender teacher’s island-hopping trek to a contest that she hopes will restart her “show business” career. She once co-hosted a regional TV chat show. She ends up taking a former student in search of his father along on the journey from Tacloban City on Leyte Island to Sicogon Island.

As the opening credits tell us, these “actors” are played by real people with the real problems depicted here. Mr. Andrade (Rey Aclao) wears dresses to work at school, but after hours and on stage, she is Jaya, a transgender woman in a committed releationship with Cyrus (Ricky Gacho, Jr.).

There is still debris everywhere, in between the buildings not destroyed by Super Typhoon Yolanda. That disaster, which killed well over 6,000 people, left a generation of Filipino children “traumatized,” Jaya narrates, something she keeps in mind when she’s dealing with her middle school students.

Jaya dreams of returning to (local TV) fame, even as she acknowledges “dreams can become nightmares”(in Spanish and Tagalog with English subtitles). The traumatized Cyrus may be supportive, but when Jaya quits her teaching job in a huff over how much cold, hard reality about how tough life she can share with her students, Cyrus is shaken.

Jaya’s going to be rehearsing and enduring this long, broke journey to Sicogon without him. But traumatized student Arnel is trying to get there to see his estranged father. They’ll travel together by sidecar trike and Jeepney bus, on foot and by undersized, under-regulated ferry boat to complete their respective quests.

They see the ruined but recovering land, hear about lost coconut crops and what it takes to bring orchards of trees back to life. And the viewer learns — from them and from Arnel’s estranged father (Raul Ramos, seen in a separate narrative thread) — about the predatory real estate developers, backed by armed goons and a government that turns a blind eye, who swoop in and displace the storm-impoverished locals by conning or simply strong-arming them off their land.

As you can tell from this long explanation, there plenty of texts and subtexts to this sometimes lighthearted film that sets up as a Filipino “Transamerica” or “Will & Harper,” a simple “road picture” that surveys the Philippines and transgender tolerance there.

Canadian director and co-writer Devlin, who did the dramedy “When the Storm Fades” and the documentary “Whoa Canada,” even has Jaya voice-over narrate this long, convoluted folk tale about the Crab King and his dealings with a frog and a mosquito that loosely ties in to the mythic origins of the word “Asog.”

Obscure touches like that make this cluttered, meandering film hard to follow.

The passing parade of locals, some more tolerant than others, scenes of storm damage and of how the working poor get by and get around are shuffled into scenes of Jaya trying to “teach” Arnel to stand up for himself and a too-brief encounter between Arnel and his dad, who is more concerned with all the friends and neighbors forced off Sicogon Island by rapacious resort developers.

We can see what Devlin saw in Aclao, his leading lady, an outsized “Tangerine” personality with dreams of small scale fame and domestic happiness. The themes and subtexts he wants to work into the narrative are compelling.

But the worthy, watchable and sometimes entertaining docudrama he parks her and all these “issues” in is too messy and voice-over chatty to easily understand or appreciate.

Rating: unrated, adult subject matter

Cast: Rey Aclao, Arnel Pablo, Ricky Gacho Jr.

Credits: Directed by Sean Devlin, scripted Rey Aclao, Sean Devlin and Arnel Pablo. A Film Movement release.

Running time: 1:44