The Spirits of Guinarona

Although we are in a foreign land, our heart belongs to Guinarona in Leyte, Philippines, our Shangri-La, the place of our untrammeled childhood. Which is not to say that we were entirely innocent of the guiles of men. On the contrary. . .

The ghost whisperers

In the 50s through the 70s, we had the biggest house in Guinarona. So big, in fact that, spirits claimed two rooms. We were about 10 when we began hearing strange voices, voices whispering into our ears--in a language we could barely make heads or tails of. The strange whispers were a constant in our young life--like we (us and siblings) always looked forward to them everyday. You knew the whispers were real because you could feel the wind from them. Sometimes, when we're alone and they come, our hair would stand on end--and our first impulse was to dash out.. Of course, when we were with a sibling, we would tell the whisperers to get lost, and when our eyes met, we would nod ourselves to scram. Other times we were brave enough to shoo the whisperers and tail them, as they travel from one room to another. Still they would not stop.

To this day, we don't know what kind of spirits were they. A shaman in Guinarona had said that two of the posts of our house used to be the domiciles of engkantos, and that they were now living with us.

We dreaded moonlit nights. Our house was notorious for kapre sightings too. The kapre (giant) made a prop out of our house, as some witnesses would say--which made them avoid our street. We did not actually see the kapre, but we could feel its presence, as evidenced by its muddy smell, and also the urgent cacklings of our coop--these in the dead of night of the full moon. We would always try to peek though a broken tipay of a window, but then would withdraw out of sheer fright. But then the muddy smell would reek on; and at the same time our chickens would continue their intermittent but urgent cackles...until we doze off with fear in our heart.. Then on the morning of the kapre visits, what would we find? Strands of its thick hair (they look like a pig's) on our clothesline!

We also had this strange visitor during the San Pascual Baylon de Guinarona fiesta every May 17. She was about 40 years old and would always arrive with a male child in tow. She and the kid would always arrive at our house before the boom of fireworks during the fiesta mass. Her garb was pink in color and made of the ancient abaca cloth (which was in vogue in the olden times, we heard.) Each time she came for the fiesta, she always wore the same dress and looked as if she did not age. Talk to her and her eyes would not meet yours. Asked why she always came ahead of the other visitors, she would invariably say the same thing: that she had to rush back to Limburan to bring food to her mother and her other kids. One time we followed her and the kid--and they disappeared before reaching the Guinarona bridge. Yes, they disappeared into thin air before our eyes!

The one with Osayin

We were with our pal, Arturo Raynera, one fine day in 1975, a few days after our brush with death, where we were oblivious of our ambulance trip to Bethany Hospital in Tacloban City. As was our wont, we would scour the hinterlands of Guinarona for some Arenga (kaong) fruits for our budding food processing enterprise. The day was fine, the air crisp and fresh. We hiked to Malubago hills with some provisions. We were just going around in circles for we could not find any Arenga palm in sight. Empty handed, we decided to make our descent to Guinarona. Then, bam. . ., a sudden downpour. We took shelter under a banana grove and continued on in the drizzle. A minute hence, and what would we find? Fresh foot tracks, about 14 inches long each, like hundreds of them---but only of the LEFT FOOT! We did look for the prints of the right foot, but there was zilch, nada. What spirit hops with only the left foot? This was a puzzle to us for years, and we were enlightened only in July 2010 when an Orisha practitioner friend explained to us that it was Osayin, the one-legged one, who she said was the go-to guy for all herbs. She added that we were blessed to have "met" him.

In sum, the eerie experiences we have had in Guinarona are part of who we are and can be recalled with the slightest stimulus, like seeing the full moon, for example. Talk, therefore, of synchronicity many years after the fact.