Tag Archives: Legend

Exploring the Contemporary urban Legend of Maria Labo

They say that she is a vampire, and it was towards the end of summer that she came to town. In these days when split-second   text messaging is the norm, the urban legend that is Maria Labo spread like the proverbial wildfire. Sensational reports of vampire sightings filled radio airwaves. Grainy photocopies that gave the vampire the face of a lank-haired lady with eerie eyes and a distinctive facial scar were eagerly passed around. The more cautious opted to stay indoors after sunset to be on the safe side. Incidents of violent encounters between rival juvenile gangs dwindled to almost nil, a welcome respite from the escalating outbreak of nightly disturbances courtesy of the restless young denizens of the downtown streets of Davao City (Sienes 2002, 8; Tesiorna 2002, 1). One night, the police reportedly apprehended a man dressed in a dark cape who attempted to break into a house. When a local paper bannered the vampire’s alleged cellular phone number, many people called the number to be thrilled by a recorded howl before being disconnected (Matela 2002, 6). The experience took less than six seconds. The server network registered it as a “dropped call.” It cost nothing.

What’s the story on Maria Labo? Why is she on everybody’s lips? Why does my 8-year-old daughter want to go next door to “exorcise” Maria Labo from the premises? Why is my soon-to-graduate student who is majoring in Psychology seeking reassurance that vampires in general, and Maria Labo in particular, are not real? Why is the local television talk show calling to ask me to give a three-minute sociological take on the vampire phenomenon? Why does my editor want me to do a story on this? Labo, pronounced in Davao with the accent on the first syllable, means vague or unclear in Visayan. I ‘ague Maria doesn’t sound like the kind of bansag that Filipinos would use, given their penchant for monickers that evoke more obvious visual recall (Medina 1991, 20), like Pepe Pilay (Lame Pepe) or Trudis Lai (Little Trudis). This became a nagging issue until, in the course of my research, I found that the Maria

Labo legend is actually a migratory legend. Local media practitioners’ who traced the origins of the Maria Labo story have it that she got to Davao from Digos; before that, from General Santos; before that, from Koronadal; and before that from a town called Surallah in South Cotabato where descendants of Ilongo migrants reside. I can only surmise that these Ilongo settlers have maintained ties with their relatives back in Iloilo as the Maria Labo story, according to my mother whom I left behind in the city of my youth, was talk of the town there towards the end of 2001. Ilongos pronounce labo with the accent on the second syllable, and it does not mean vague or unclear. It means ‘to chop with a bolo.’ Now, that sounds a bit more typical of bansags.

An urban legend is a widely dispersed rumor that essays the origin of an urban social phenomenon. It therefore consists of unsubstantiated and unverifiable information spread informally, often by word of mouth (Macionis 1999, 612-614). Tales like Maria Labo especially thrive in this atmosphere of ambiguity because an audience that has very little definitive knowledge about vampires—what they look like, what they can do, and how to become one—would naturally find the topic fascinating to discuss. The fascination takes hold and fuels in turn an exponential increase in recipients. Some people just cannot help sounding out friends and acquaintances in a vain search for conclusive and authoritative explanation. They also cannot help tacking on a humorous and fanciful spin to the story as they pass it along, thereby enhancing the general appeal of the continuing intrigue by raising more questions faster than answers could be given. But, while some urban legends have the potential to build up mass hysteria, I somehow suspect that the speculative rumor mill will stop grinding the Maria Lab() story when the novelty wears off, much in the same way that the effect of a milder form of viral infection tapers off after it has run its course.

It is amazing how some details of the Maria Labo story have remained consistent as the legend spread around. The stories from friends and strangers alike repeat similar particularities, a tribute to the reliability of instant text messaging technology that is decisively replacing the relatively slow “word of mouth” with the digital velocity of the “word of thumb.” But perhaps what is more of note to students of social behavior is the nature of the information that people find worthy to pass along when they have the means to do so. Here is a general outline of the legend that is Maria Labo:

Maria was a nurse or a caregiver to a rich old man in England. Racked by homesickness for the two children she left behind ten years ago, she asked leave from her employer to go home. The boss, so the story goes, was a vampire who was soon to die. He took pity on Maria, but would only allow her to go home if she would promise to turn the Philippines into a land of vampires. For this, the old man allegedly gave Maria two million pounds and a magic stone that, when swallowed, would turn her into a vampire. Maria went home to her husband and children. One night, she swallowed the magic stone and it caused her to cut up her children with a bolo. Her husband, a policeman, wrested the bolo from her and delivered a chopping blow to her face. Gravely wounded, Maria fled the house. Maria, now marked by a distinctive facial scar from the bolo, is reported to resurface every now and then to attack people.

It is interesting to note that strains of rural mythology litter the urban legends in the Philippines. Consider the snake twin supposedly kept in the basement dungeon of a local department store. Rumor has it that unwitting users of the fitting rooms provide the snake’s daily requirement for fresh blood. Remember the aswang stories in Tondo in years past? Or the white lady along Balete Drive in Quezon City? Until our generation, children learned of these preternatural creatures and their ilk from our yaya’s bedtime stories. These days, the television, that ubiquitous electronic nursemaid, has supplanted the human ones as purveyors of this cultural heritage. Not only do kids get to hear of these mystical beings, they actually see some inspired interpretations by the art crew behind the television camera. Some yayas enhance the scare value of TV fare to entertain and, more often than not, discipline their young charges through role-playing and imaginative story-telling. Since visual images are retained longer and stronger in our memory, these elements of folk belief are likely to live on and become part of our lives as a people. On black nights— courtesy of the local government’s effort to trim its energy costs by switching off every other streetlight (Maxey 2002, 4)— the legions of the dark are likely to be brought out from our collective psyche, with our without help from Maria Labo.

The vampire is not a part of indigenous Filipino folk belief. It may have been introduced to our national consciousness in the late 1940s, perhaps through the vampire films of Bela Lugosi. In the 1950s, the vampire was used as a psy-war weapon against the communist-led Huk rebellion.’ Lt. Col. Edward G. Lansdale, then Office of Policy Coordination (OPD) station chief in Manila, ordered a study of Filipino superstitions, lore and myth (Smith 1976, 84-85). The OPD was known as the “dirty tricks department” of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and was tasked to “conduct covert psychological warfare, covert

political action, and covert paramilitary action” (Smith, 55)- including sabotage, counter sabotage, and plain, good old fashioned rumor mongering What Lansdale did was to kill a communist guerilla, puncture his neck with fang marks, and leave the dead body under the balete tree for residents to find in the morning.6 It was designed to make the residents flee from their villages out of fear of aswangs and thus dry up support for the Huks. The American-concocted vampire had blended with the local aswang. This may explain why the Philippine vampire today is a woman, instead of a man as usually portrayed in the West.

But, Maria Labo does not really meet the requirements for a vampire. She did not drink vampire blood to become a vampire, for one. Her supposed powers come from a stone that sets off a schizophrenic transformation similar to what turns Mars Ravelo’s girl-next-door Narda into superheroine Darna. Vampires are supposedly immortal and their aging process gets reversed every time they feed (Kalogridis 1994). The image then of an old, decrepit vampire languishing on his deathbed and begging to be free from this cruel world is incongruous, to say the least. Maria’s boss did not have to die or be on the brink of death to pass on his powers. This is more in keeping with the local myth on the rule of succession for aswangs and maranhigs (zombies). Moreover, where vampires can purportedly fly, pass through walls or translocate, Maria tracks the highway to the city, imitating the observed pattern of increasing rural to urban migration of the human variety. Vampires go for the jugular with their fangs. They do not need to chop up people to get at the blood. Just watch them on Angel or Buffs  the Vampire Slayer weeknights on TV. Or rent the movie adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire (Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Antonio Banderas!) or, more recently, Queen of the Damned.

The human mind holds a morbid and compulsive fascination for the mystical (Baigent, et al. 1989, 133-201). This explains why it is a popular subject for the big and small screens. But one danger spawned by these popularly available cinematic renditions of vampiric legend is that the visual images they present become subject to personal perception. They are poor avenues by which to expound on the vampire mythology of the West because the viewer who is unfamiliar with the subject is likely to take it in by filtering it through the pattern resonances in his world view, and to translate and adapt it to his own world of experience (Crider, et al. 1983, 110).

For academicians therefore, it pays to hear the Maria Labo story with a Filipino ear. There is no mother out there who cannot empathize with Maria’s homesickness and longing for the babies she left behind, especially in the time of the feminization of migrant labor when more and more mothers are leaving their homes to work abroad, often as nurse or caregiver (Bruce, et a]. 1995). Wherever they are, people who have been raised in Filipino homes are likely to inject personalism to business relationships with their employers. Terminating the employer-employee relationship has to be formalized. We do not walk out on people even if our contract of services may have long expired. Reared in rigid social structures, we are likely to take as utang na  loob, a personal favor that needs to be repaid, the consent of our employer for us to do what is within our right to do. Much more so when our employer, to whose commands we have always acceded, makes a pakiusap or a gentle request (Panopio, et al. 1995). The mission becomes especially binding when the request is made and paid for by a dying man. If folktales be valid indicators of expected cultural behavior, it seems like relatives and caregivers could not deny the suffering of dying aswangs and maranhigs. So why should Maria not accord the same courtesy to a dying vampire?

Maria’s tale resonates with the social values we all grew up with. The storyline, absurd as it may seem, plays out these values as motives that inexorably drew Maria to her tragedy. We are familiar with these nonrational excuses for behavior. Everyday, cheap telenovela fare keeps many of us hopelessly riveted and entangled in heaps of improbable situations and the emotion-laden moral dilemmas modern fictional heroes and heroines must contend with. These elements enter into our subjective reality, and as we mull over dinner these fictitious characters’ latest escapades and the imbroglio they get into, we talk about them as if they live right next door, such that we are privy to their reasons and motivations. We even take sides. This is not surprising as, closer to home, nonrational motives characterize our very own modes of operating as we cope with everyday reality (Quisumbing, cited in Ortigas 1995, 148-154). Art imitates life. Life imitates art. And so long as fiction echoes shades of our real selves, we can relate and find it both plausible and appealing.

What has Maria’s story brought to us aside from clearing up our streets of prospective victims and perpetrators of juvenile mayhem? My vegetable vendor, for one, is especially pleased that her teenage sons stay home at night sending text messages to friends about the latest on Maria. But beyond this, the vampire legend has delivered more utilitarian benefits that may be responsible in part for its propagation especially these days when Davao City households have a lot to worry about. In the last quarter, fuel prices have gone up by an average of five percent (Davao City Price Index ’01-’02). Rice now sells at P28 from P21 per kilo four months back, an exorbitant rate of increase that demands much microeconomic contortions from even the most creative homemaker. In May when students started enrolling, school dues went up by an average of 10 percent. Every six weeks thereafter, the family has to tighten the constricting belt further to pay the dues for exams. With no great economic miracle looming in the horizon and seemingly no hope of government support in the form of price controls over these indispensable items on the family budget, the less fortunate among us are feeling the pinch (BAYAN, et al. 2002, 11). Maria Labo, with her immediate visceral appeal, serves to divert our attention from the monotonous worry over our life situation that stubbornly refuses to be within our power to alter for the better. Here, at least, is a matter we can do something about, if only to pass her story along. At the same time, the fear she brings up to the surface relieves us of the vague stirrings of subliminal anxiety caused by our very real daily concerns.

And as befits any story sketched by a collective of Filipino minds, the tragedy that is Maria has trite, moral counterpoints simmering below the surface: Wealth has a price. The price is one soul. Somewhere at the back of the minds of this story’s listeners and propagators alike lurks a degree of fatalistic acceptance, if not downright satisfaction, for their more deplorable lot in life. Maria helps us settle down to cope with our unrelenting financial worries. We would rather deal with this familiar drudgery than take on the moral dilemmas that being a vampire brings, inheriting two million pounds notwithstanding.

And as summer draws to a close, Maria comes to town. Maybe, like the sources of our collective anxiety, she too is here to stay.

Legend of the Buklog

The tale of the origin of the buklog was told to Thimuay Mangura of Vicente L. Imbing by his grandfather, Datu Lumok Imbing, who was the tribal leader from 1921-1958, and who in turn had heard it from his great ancestor Thimuay Imbing who ruled his people in the late 1800s. This story has been retold many times  over and is a tale known to the balians or shamans who specialize in the buklog rituals. The     tale embodies sacred rites and beliefs associated with the various rites of passage among the Subanen people. The ceremony is still practised by the tribe.

A long, long time ago, there was this man, the son of    the union of an earthling and a supernatural, who lived on earth for a thousand years. His name is Jobrael. Sometimes he is called Jobraim. This Jobrael who lived for a thousand years was considered overstaying by Diwata Magbabaya. This Diwata Magbabaya is the Supreme God, the creator of heaven and earth.

The angel Palmot went down to earth, and he looked for Jobrael and when he found him he delivered the Creator’s message.

The messenger had no choice but to go back to heaven without Jobrael. He told Diwata Magbabaya what happened. “Jobrael refuses to obey your orders, he likes to continue living and staying on earth.”

When Magbabaya heard this, he told Palmot, “You go back to earth, bring this kettle with you” (the kettle is similar to the one in which you boil water), but instead of containing water, it was filled with rice bran, which is very light. “The moment,” Magbabaya continued,” you reach earth, you put this on the ground and you let Jobrael lift this kettle up, if he can lift up, then I will permit him to continue staying on earth.”

Palmot brought the kettle full of rice bran to earth and he placed it on the ground as he was instructed by Magbabaya. He called Jobrael, he said, “There is a kettle sent by the Creator, if you like to continue your stay here on earth you better lift this up, if you cannot lift it, you will by all means have to go back to the Creator.”

Jobrael held the kettle and when he tried to pull it up, the whole earth followed (it was like a magnet); when he tried to turn it, the whole earth turned around seven times with it. So Jobrael, in order to show that he can really challenge Magbabaya, the Supreme God, jumped and tried to pull the kettle up. When he did that, he realized that his human body was left on earth, and that he was already in spirit form, floating, flying around.

He then floated around a bit, and he drifted towards the east. When he reached the east, Jobrael was surprised to see so many people, and they were celebrating, dancing and making merry. So, he asked, “Why are you having this celebration here?”

The people answered, “Don’t you know, that Jobrael the overstaying person is now dead? That is why we have to celebrate.”

Jobrael answered , “No, I’m still alive, I’m still around.” Getting no response from the people he floated to the west, he witnessed the same thing, he met people who were celebrating because “Jobrael was now called by God.”

Again, Jobrael insisted, “No, I’m still alive, I’m here, I’m the one.”  But this statement did not have any effect on the people.

He floated to the north, to the south, it was the same scene that he saw, people were having a celebration because Jobrael at last was recalled to heaven. He could not convince the people that he was still around and very much alive. Finally, he was thrown to heaven and caught and imprisoned by the messengers of the Supreme God, Magbabaya.

The Creator said, “You Jobrael are trying to defy my orders, because of this you will be imprisoned here in heaven and you will not be permitted to go anywhere, anymore.”

Jobrael answered, “What will happen to my son and family on earth?”

Magbabaya said, “Your son will be given seven years to stay on earth, after which he will also be recalled back to heaven.”

Once again, Magababaya sent his messenger Palmot to earth to look for the son of Jobrael to deliver him the message.

Inasmuch as he was still single his friends said, “We better look for a wife for the son of Jobrael because he has only seven years to stay on earth and he has no descendants yet.”

So they went on a quest to look for the right woman to become the wife of Jobrael’s son. They went to the east, to the west, to the north, it was all the same, they could not find a woman that will match, or that was fit to be the wife of the son of Jobrael. Then, finally, they went to the center of the earth. There they found a Gomotan.

This Gomotan had a Daughter who was also very beautiful and very intelligent. His companion decided, “Now we have found a match for the son of Jobrael.” And they let him get married.

Although they were now married, she did not submit to him as a wife. She refused to offer food or the betel nut chew (mamaq) to the son of Jobrael. They were also living separately. When asked about this situation she replied, “We have to do something because you will only be staying here on earth for seven years.”

On the first year of their marriage, after harvest time, she gave instructions to her people to mount crosses on the ground facing the east. On these she told them to offer betel nut and lime. The people followed exactly what she had told them to do, because they believed she was a very wise woman.

The following year, she again requested the people to make an altar. The platform is square-like, on it offering were also placed. This altar will be hung inside the sala or living room of the house. Underneath, the altar is supported by a bamboo post. The altar was then decorated with buri leaves, or palm-like leaves called pisa. On this altar offerings will be placed, the blood of the chicken butchered for the occasion, a boiled egg, rice molded into balls and pieces of pork meat boiled without salt. Beside the altar is placed an earthen jar containing rice wine or gasi.

Then, after harvest, on the third year of their marriage, the wife of the son of Jobrael instructed her people to make an altar; buntings of cloth of black and yellow colors were decorations. Then she instructed them to cut wood and make carvings on it. This altar was later placed in the lamin, which is located in the ceiling of a Subanen house.

On the fourth year of their marriage, the wife of the son of Jobrael told the people to procure a large earthen jar. She then instructed them to mount bamboo sticks inside the jar, to tie them with strings and to place on the tips of the bamboo sticks mosala, colored strips of cloth and Subanen sweets tied on the tips of the bamboo sticks. This jar, the wife of the son of Jobrael said, was to be placed near the main post of the house.

Meanwhile, the people wondered if the wife of the son of Jobrael was being given instruction by Diwata Magbabaya, because she was able to execute all of these offerings. But of course, they knew that she was also a very wise woman, so they did not question or doubt her wisdom, but instead followed all of her instructions.

On the fifth year, she requested the people to go to the forest and gather a certain kind of wood to be used for a post. She told them to being this to the house, after which she asked the balian to apply some “medicine’ on the post, and to offer prayers to prevent evil happenings, sickness or any untoward incidents to take place in their community.

Then, on the sixth year, she told her trusted people to go to the forest to gather a special kind of wood called bayug to be made into a mortar. She gave specific instructions that the tree, after it is felled, had to be carried on the shoulders of the men instead of having the carabao drag or pull it. When they went to the forest, they beat the going and were chanting prayers. They got the trunk of the bayug tree as per instructions and brought it back to the house and presented it to the woman. She then called the balian to hew a mortar out of the wood, and told her people to have this placed under the house. She told them to cover it with nipa leaves to protect it from people who might step or fall on it. Then she told the people to play the gongs, to dance and also to butcher a pig for the occasion.

The following year- the last year that was given by the Creator to the son of Jobrael so he can continue living on earth- the wife then gave an order to her people to go to the forest and gather a special wood called labalud. She told them to cut eight trunks of this kind of wood. Third time they brought it back to the house by having a carabao pull the sled where they placed the tree trunks.

A few days later she instructed them to dig eight holes in square formation, the holes three meters equidistant from each other. On these holes a center post was placed or mounted facing the east. This is the first post that they erected in the platform site, facing the house. On the post, the balian applied some “medicine,” after which the other remaining seven posts were mounted.

Then she told them to prepare the bamboos, which were split and flattened. These she said were to be used as the flooring of the platform. Since they were not to used nails as they did not have them yet, the posts and the flooring were tied with rattan vines which they also had gathered from the forest. All told, the platform construction was completed by sundown and there was much feasting, dancing and drinking of gasi to accompany the construction of the platform by the people of the wife of the son of Jobrael.

As per instructions of the wife of the son of Jobrael, in all of the seven years of yearly activities that she had given to his people to fulfill, they always had to butcher pigs and provide food and drinks for the people who were involved in the various stages of the ritual. There is also the continuous beating of the gongs day and night to provide accompaniment for the dancing from the time they have started gathering the materials which were ordered by the wife of the son of Jobrael.

And so it came to pass that in the seventh year, Palmot the messenger of the Creator Magbabaya was again sent back to earth to fetch the son of Jobrael. When he arrived on earth he looked for the son of Jobrael. Finally, when he couldn’t find on earth, he went to the center of the earth, the place where the son of Jobrael and his wife lived.

Upon reaching the center of the earth and finding the son of Jobrael, Palmot said, “I am here to get you now as ordered by the Supreme Creator, you have to go back to heaven for your time is up already.’

Upon hearing this, the wife of the son of Jobrael answered and said, “No, you cannot get the son of Jobrael now, you see,” she told Palmot, “we have made all these things, and we do not even know how we will call or name all of them. Perhaps of you can give us the names of what we have made, then maybe you can bring my husband back to heaven with you.’

She continued, saying, “Inasmuch as I have not even offered any food or betel nut chew to my husband, you cannot get him now, because we have not been living together. We have to make or perform all these things, even if we do not know what we could call all of these. ”

Palmot could not do anything. He scratched his head and said, “I myself do not know the name of all these. I will have to go back to the Creator and ask him what this is all about.”

So Palmot, the messenger of the Creator, went back to heaven. When he reached heaven, the Creator asked him, ‘Where is the son of Jobrael? Did I not tell you to bring him back?”

Palmot replied, “Yes, oh, Supreme Creator, but when I reached the earth, I had to look for him. When I finally found him, I was confronted by his wife who told me I couldn’t bring her husband back to heaven because she said they will have to know the name of the things that they have made in behalf of her husband, the son of Jobrael. Since I do not know them myself, I had to come back here to ask you.”

The Supreme Creator said, “Why don’t you describe these things to me?”

Palmot then proceeded to describe the figures that the wife of the son of Jobrael made beginning from the first year of their marriage.

The Creator said, “Ah, that is what you call the salangsang. You tell the people on earth that is how it should be called.”

Then Palmot continued to describe the various activities and materials produced and made by the people for the wife of the son of Jobrael.

The Creator called the altar constructed during the second year, out of the seven years he had permitted the son of Jobrael to stay on earth, binalay.

The altar and offerings given during the third year ware called palasanding. The bamboo sticks tied with rattan and decorated with mosala and mounted in an earthen jar, were named banghaso.

Then the Creator said, “The mortar is to be called dulugan, and the pestle, pathaw; the master post, guingho ran tumayam; the wood is flexible and does not break easily will be called labalod.” The naming of the various parts was completed up to the seventh year by the Creator.

And finally, Diwata Magbabaya declared the whole structure and its attendant activities as the buklog.

After this, the Creator said, “Since the wife of the son of Jobrael has done this, we do not have the right to get him to return to heaven. They have offered these things for him, his wife has redeemed her husband now.”

And so the son of Jobrael stayed on earth for many years and he lived together with his wife and grandchildren.

“That is the story of how the Subanen came to know about the buklog,” Thimuay Mangura Vicente L. Imbing said. “Perhaps,” he continued, “this might as well be the origin of other related rituals and celebrations in our Subanen culture.”

“You know, some of the rituals here that have been observed within the seven-year period are also part of our rites of passage, like the putting up of a banghaso during our wedding ceremony, or the setting up  of a binalay or the salansang during healing ceremonies.”

With these statements Thimuay Imbing concluded our conversation regarding the buklog.

Ecology and Creation According to the Bukidnon of Central Mindanao

Bukidnon is a land-locked province in north central Mindanao. It has as area of 803,810 hectares. Its capital town is Malabalay 60 kilometers by air or 104 kilometers by road, southeast of Cagayan de Oro. It is 850 kilometers by air from Manila. On the west it is bounded by the provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur. The two Agusans bound it on the east, Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental on the north, and Davao City and North Cotabato on the south. It rises abruptly to height of 900 feet above sea level. it has many plateaus, canyons, plains and valleys. I has high and long mountain ranges. Mt. Kitanglad (2,380 meters), is an extinct volcano, and is found on the center and dominates the Bukidnon plateau. Mt. Kitanglad (2,380 meters) and Mt. Tangkulang (1,678 meters) are the highest peaks in Bukidnon.
Bukidnon has many rivers and streams. The headwaters of the Pulangi are found near the foot of Mt. Kimangkil in Misamis Oriental, enlarged by tributaries like the Sawag, Manupali, Tigwa, Maladugao and Muleta rivers. The Pulangi flows southwards to  Cotabato. From the slopes of Mt. Kitanglad flows the Cagayan River, stretching through the western and northern borders, gently flowing through Cagayan de Oro and joining the sea at the western side of Macajalar Bay.  The  Tagoloan River springs from Can-ayon, east of Malaybalay, and is fed by tributaries like the Mangima,  Kulaman and Atugan rivers. It winds northward and flows into the southeast coast off of Macajalar Bay. The plateau is practically covered by cogon (Imperata cylindrica), bagukbuk and talahib grasses and is ideal for cattle raising.