The Haunted Road (Midway National Park)

Midway of Iligan-Cagayan Corridor with its long stretched forest

We've heard of stories about roads inhabited by different creatures from the underworld.  We often see them in movies.  This story has been passed on to generations and a few years ago, an acquaintance of mine actually experienced this one of a kind phenomenon.

Inside Midway National Park

This person has been a Medical Representative in one of the top Medical Companies here in the Philippines.  Her job as a Med-Rep is to cover portions of the archipelago to promote the medical brands they carry.  This friend was given a service vehicle to help her go to and from the different hospitals in Northern Mindanao.  She had been travelling along different highways to go to different cities.  The road connecting the cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro is popularly known as the Cagayan-Iligan Corridor.  It is a picturesque road where you can see the sea and on the other is the vast fields of different crops, houses, and an occasional mountain or two.  In one portion particularly in what we fondly call the Midway, since it is located halfway to either city, you will pass a forested area.  This area has been a National Park for several years now and well-kept for the preservation of different species of plants and animals.  This is the part of the highway which is haunted by ghosts, white ladies, and old undead people.

Some of the centennial trees preserved inside
Midway National Park

She had been passing this corridor for years now.  But she always went home to Cagayan de Oro during daytime or in the afternoon.  It was a very busy day and she had a late dinner with a few clients and physicians in Iligan.  She waited until the last physician had left when she decided to hit the road and drive home to Cagayan.  It was late, that was her mistake.  It was already 12:30 A.M. when she left Iligan and reached Midway at approximately 1:45 A.M.  She was speeding at 80 km/hour when a woman ran across the road and it was all too sudden that Mia, the Med-Rep, was not able to hit the brakes.  She struck the woman head-on.  It was so hard that she felt the car slammed on the woman and knocked her over and now the woman was under the car.  

She quickly went out of the vehicle and peered under the car to help the woman under it.  She was in the middle of the road and so she had to act fast lest she would be hit by other vehicles travelling at such late hour.  She bent over and even went down on her knees just to see better where the woman could be.  But when she got her flashlight out, she could not see anybody under the car.  This part of the highway was poorly lit a few years back, that was why there were a number of reported cases where vehicles would crash into trees and even into other vehicles because the drivers steer away from people crossing the street at night.  Mia even walked a few feet back for fear that the woman was thrown over on the other side of the road but nobody was there.  It was also dark and not a single vehicle was in sight for no one would like to travel at that late an hour.  She decided to get in the car, she could feel goosebumps on her arms as the cool air from the air conditioner inside the car hit her face and neck.  She was sure that she hit someone.  She was used to staying up and driving late in the evening and she was not sleepy either.  She was sure she was not hallucinating.  She was positive it was a woman because she had long hair and she was wearing a white dress.  She was afraid she had killed someone on the road.  She pulled over to the side to check again.  This time she looked over the hood of her car.  No dents whatsoever.  How could you hit a person so hard at high speed and yet not make any dents at all?  Even dogs make dents.  She went back to the site and this time there was a truck coming up the road and so she frantically searched for the woman because the truck might hit her again if she was lying somewhere on the road.  But nobody was there.  No trace, no blood, no pieces of clothing torn, no sandals thrown. Zilch. 


The truck pulled up and the driver asked her what was wrong.  She told him what happened and to her amazement, the driver just shook his head.  "Giti-aw ka ma'am.  Maayo pa ma'am mopadayon nalang ka ug uli kay layo layo pa ang Cagayan.  Wala gayud kay makita diha ma'am."  (You were being joked ma'am.  It is better ma'am that you go on driving home because Cagayan is still very far.  You would not really see anything there ma'am).  With those words, the truck left.  Puzzled and a bit nervous now, she went back inside the car for the second time and started it.  She was signalling to the left to get back to the highway when she peered at the rear view mirror.  Then the woman began to wail.  It was an eerie sound like it was coming from outside like in a cave, echoing.  It was so loud and Mia was snapped.  There she was, the woman was already sitting at the backseat of the car.  Mia was frozen, her eyes wide with fear.  She could not move, she was staring at the blood-red eyes of the woman sitting behind her.  It was as if the woman was glowing transparent and translucent but she could not make out the face.  It was the eyes that held her gaze.  Unseeing eyes but very intense.  Mia could not will herself to turn and look at the creature face to face so she was just out of her trance as she was blinded by light coming her way, they were actually  headlights from another truck.  She veered hard to the right, she didn't know she was driving and moving again and that she almost ran into a semi coming from the other direction.  When she looked at the backseat, the woman was gone.  She was already out of the wooded area and she pulled over to collect herself.  It was like a dream .  No, nightmare.  Was it all true? Did the woman dressed in bloodied clothes really sat behind her in the car?  It was all a fiction of her imagination or so she thought until she looked back at the roadside near the single street lamp at the edge of the long stretch of the forest.  A long figure stood there waving at her.  It was she.  

The Tale of The Woman Across Tambacan Bridge

Abby was my bestfriend’s aunt.  They originally came from Manila and transferred in Iligan City for good.  Abby was sixteen and planned to marry Danilo who was a neighbor’s son.   She had an old wooden trunk called ba-ul where she kept all the things she collected like embroidered clothes, old coins, pictures, and anything like that. 

When Abby and Danilo got married, she was the happiest bride that my bestfriend Cathy ever saw.  Amidst the laughter and merry making of Danilo and Abby's wedding, a silent heart was grieving.  Abby's old flame, Rolando, cannot accept the fact that Abby was getting married to another man.  Danilo was a security guard but he worked on a day shift and came home around twilight.  They did not have much and their house was small but Abby kept it neat as a pin. 

Abby visited Cathy and her mother’s place one day with her face so radiant.  She said she had the most wonderful news and that she was going to have a baby.  She stayed at the place the whole day asking Cathy’s mother everything about babies.  

Cathy and her mother used to visit Abby often to help her with her daily chores.  Cathy’s mother, after their mother left them, had helped raised Abby and so she was more like a daughter than a sister to her.  When she was on her sixth month, she had already accumulated quite a few baby items which she kept in her ba-ul.  She was very excited.

One day when Cathy and her mother visited Abby, she stared blankly in the wall.  She told Cathy’s mother that if she died in childbirth she wanted her to raise her baby and to keep her ba-ul for the baby.  Cathy’s mother was shocked but Abby persisted.  Before they left, Abby hugged them so tightly.  She was now all by herself.  Lightning flashed and dark clouds rolled over.  Gusts of wind were bending the trees and big drops of rain started to fall.  When they were nearly home there was a heavy downpour.  The thunderstorm was scary.  They barely made it through the door and their clothes were dripping wet.  It was already dark when the storm subsided.  They cooked dinner and stayed at the veranda after to wait for Cathy’s father to come home.         

At about 12:15 a.m. while at the veranda, Cathy and her mother saw someone coming.  They could see a faint outline even though it was foggy.  They saw a woman came up the far side of the footbridge and stopped.  She stood there for a long time and held her hand up as if to wave goodbye. The sight gave them cold chills and shivers over their neck and arms.  They thought it looked like Abby but felt like she was visiting from beyond. 

The next morning they were awakened by a loud pounding on their front door.  Cathy’s father opened the door when he saw Danilo stumbled through the door carrying Abby’s lifeless body.  He said that he came home last night and Abby was not there.  He thought she was spending the night with them because of the storm.  He got up this morning to come to their place and to pick Abby when he found her lifeless body lying beside the footbridge.  She must have tried to make it to their house.

After Abby's death they told Danilo about the woman across the footbridge.  Cathy and her mother were sure that it was Abby’s spirit wandering around.  Cathy’s mother had been crying days after the incident.  She had been blaming herself and was feeling guilty over leaving Abby alone on that day.  They missed her terribly.

One night while they were waiting on the veranda for her father, Cathy was feeling sleepy when she saw a glimpse of the woman again slowly moving along the path to the bridge.  She was wearing a white dress and she paused at the end of the bridge.  Then she slowly moved and went to the tree facing the veranda and then she disappeared.  A tingling sensation crept over their whole body.  Cathy and her mother knew it was Abby.  She must have been trying to tell something.

The next day they went to visit Danilo.  Cathy’s mother told him about what they saw the last night and he was stunned about it.  Cathy’s mother asked Danilo if they could look through her things.  When Cathy’s mother checked the ba-ul she noticed that the trunk was slightly opened and when she opened it she found that all the baby clothes were scattered.  Her mother angrily asked Danilo who had been in the trunk but he did not know.  While she was straightening and putting everything in place, a small pink book fell.  It was a diary.  Cathy’s mother was scanning through the pages when the last page caught her eye.  

Alam kong hindi ko na masisilayan pa ang aking sanggol dahil sa mga panaginip ko nagsasabing iiwan ko na ang mundong ito. 
Danilo alam mong mahal na mahal kita ngunit kailangan na kitang iiwan.
Kung sino man ang makakabasa nito wag kayong magdadalamhati para sa akin dahil alam ko at nakikita kong tayong lahat ay magkakasama din sa darating na panahon.

Abby wrote that she knew she would never hold her newborn.  Her dreams revealed where she would be.  She was telling that if anybody would read it not to grieve for her for one day they will all be together. 

When I asked Cathy how Abby knew about her death, she said they did not know how.  But she would never forget that even today, after twenty seven years, she could still close her eyes and see her coming across the footbridge.     

A neighbor said that she saw Rolando on that same day also running to take shelter from the rain at the same Sari-Sari store she went to.  It was raining so hard so she did not have time to chat with Rolando.  On her way back she saw Abby hurrying across the bridge and that was the last time that she saw Abby alive ...

The Tale of My Cousin and The Kapre in The Caimito Tree

Most of us believe in the other world or the World of the Spirits.  They are thought to exist because of the Great Battle in Heaven when the rebels were cast down by God and thrown down to Earth.  Hence, we have "Kapre" if they fell on trees, dwarf if they landed in houses and etcetera. 


"Kapre," according to Wikipedia (related to the the Agta in the Visayan languages) is a "Philippine mythical creature that could be characterized as a tree demon, but with more human characteristics.  It is described as being a tall (7 to 9 ft), brown, hairy male with a beard.  Kapres are normally described as smoking a big tobacco pipe, whose strong smell would attract human attention.  The Kapre is said to wear the indigenous Northern Philippine loincloth known as bahag, and according to some, often wears a belt which gives the kapre the ability to be invisible to humans.  In some versions, the kapre is supposed to hold a magical white stone, the kapre could grant wishes.  Kapres may make contact with people  to offer friendship, or if it is attracted to a woman.  If a kapre befriends any human, especially because of love, the kapre will consistently follow its "love interest" throughout life.  Also if one is a friend of the kapre then that person has the ability to see it and if they were to sit on it then any other person could see it."


However, still there are a lot to learn from these phenomena since not all humans are gifted to see these creatures.  All I know and believe is that the world is made up of so many infinite things that could not even be explained by science and anything infinite is unearthly...  transcendental ...  supernatural.

This story is derived from the experience of my cousin.  They are a well-off family in a certain barangay in our place.  They have accumulated their wealth from various business ventures since my aunt is an entrepreneur.  They built their house in a lot that has a star apple tree.  It is called caimito by the natives.  It is a big tree with a relatively long lifespan.  They do not believe in the supernatural and so they preserved the tree which is outside the window of my cousin's bedroom.  When she grew up particularly during her teen years, she started experiencing different maladies.  She was bleeding all the time and had spent most of her teen life confined in hospitals.  Doctors finally diagnosed her of having problems with her reproductive system hence the surgery at an early age.  All was well and she finally was able to graduate from High School and decided to leave home for college and transfer to Cebu City.  It was then that her troubles came back with full force.  She was bleeding again and she was seeing different creatures during her waking and sleeping hours.  According to her, a black person is living in their caimito tree.  Whenever she left home she would feel sick and was always confined at home because if she stayed at home she will not feel sick.  Things began happening in their home as well.  In the middle of the night, doors would shut close with a bang.  Faucets would turn on by themselves.  It would be very noisy on the first level of the house but whenever they would go down to check, nobody was there and everything would be very quiet.  Eerily quiet.  Her mom was even locked inside her dressing room from the outside so she had to call on to their neighbor for help because she could not get out.  She was all alone in the house at that time. 


The biggest puzzle was when my cousin got accepted by the college she applied to in Cebu City.  It is pretty far from our place, an overnight boat ride or a 45-minute plane ride from a nearby city.  She became sick again.  She was hallucinating a lot and she could not sleep.  The black man, "kapre," was befriending her and wanted her to go with him.  But where? According to the creature, to his home, pointing to the caimito tree.  Her mother was very concerned because she was already becoming violent.  She was having episodes where she would black out and could not remember what transpired when she regained consciousness.  She consulted a faith healer or "mananambal."  

The healer said that the creature was of the same age as my cousin.  A naughty one because he loves to make fun of humans.  He was very large also but you would see that he is very young.  It was as if they were born on the same day.  My aunt accounted that her placenta went missing right after she gave birth to my cousin.  They think that the creatures from the tree had the placenta taken for they too bore a son.  Now that the son was mature he would terrorize the people in the house by shaking the house and jolting everyone in it.  Scaring and terrifying owners and housemaids alike.  The creature believes that my cousin was his "soulmate" and so he was claiming her.  He would promise her that he would take care of her and that she will be free from her sickness and ailments if she went with him.  

One time, they boarded a boat for Cebu for it was time to enroll for school.  Everything was fine until they were by the entrance of the boat when my cousin did not budge from where she was standing, she could not move her legs.  She was paralyzed on the spot.  Her mother was already so anxious  because somehow she knew something would happen.  Then my cousin went hysterical.  She was crying and told her mother that she could not continue with the journey because she will die.  She really thought that she would die.  She was wailing and shaking uncontrollably.  My aunt was already planning to send her away from their house because the healer said that the black man will take her and she might eventually succumb just to stop her health problems.  And so my aunt together with three male ship attendants tried to pull her inside the boat.  Dragging her inside.  According to them she was very strong, fighting all the way through.  One will ask how would a 4'11" petite girl of 16 have super strength like that? It was so hard and it was indeed a difficult feat to get her inside the ship.  Her mother had to put some oil made by the healer on her daughters neck and hands and she calmed down eventually.  She always had a bracelet with a bottle charm containing the oil the healer made for her protection.

I saw her yesterday and I couldn't believe how she transformed from a very sickly girl to a vibrant young woman.  I could never imagine what she went through her childhood and teen life.  Now, the tree is still there by her window but according to the healer the creature could only glance at her from afar because of some enchantment and rituals that she did to drive him out of the house.  For now she is safe according to the healer ..... for now.

Sendong: The Tormented Souls

A recent tragedy took my city by surprise a few months ago.  The typhoon Sendong (International Name: Washi) claimed hundreds of lives in just a few hours.  It was in the middle of the night when it struck us when majority of the population were in deep slumber.  The raging waters rushed from the mountains, overflowing our rivers and gigantic logs soon followed wreaking more havoc and killing anyone -- humans and animals alike -- who were on their way.  Darkness enveloped my beloved city and in that darkness it also had brought the wrath of death. 

The typhoon left everyone reeling from the horrifying experience.  According to some Medicinemen we interviewed, some souls thought they were still alive and so they continued to live normal lives.

There were a number of accounts of jeepneys picking up groups of students from a school and after reaching a certain intersection near the barangay which was badly hit by the catastrophe, when the driver glanced at the rearview mirror about to collect the fare, nobody was there.  The laughter and the noise would also cease once they reached that particular place.  This was one of the reasons why jeepneys in that area don't travel beyond twilight.

The subdivision which was almost wiped out during the flood remained dark even today because only a few went back to their homes.  The Bayug Island, which was hit the worst, now resembles a ghost town.  People say that up to this moment they would still hear dogs howling, rushing waters gushing by the river, and people screaming, crying out for help.

Crosses erected at the riverbank of the now uninhabited Bayug Island which was once full of houses 

The first night after the incident was probably the hardest, aside from the fact that people were left homeless and searching for loved ones lost during the previous night's nightmare, they needed basic necessities such as food and water.  People became desperate as the death toll rose and the list of missing persons also got longer by the minute.  Majority of the missing persons were never found til this day.  Some bodies washed up several kilometers from the city, some even crossing the sea.  In the darkness one will hear the heart-wrenching cries of the babies and children who died.

My friend is one of the survivors who went back to his house.  He lives in the first barangay which was hit by the logs.  On his first night back at his home, while talking to his girlfriend on the phone outside his veranda, he noticed a group of people walking on the road.  He was confused why there were almost a hundred children, adults, and even old people trudging along somewhat in a trance going to the direction of the bridge.  This bridge was broken when the strong current from the river combined with the force of the logs slammed into it.  He was amazed because these people were all very quiet, one would think that it's weird  to have a hundred people all walking together but doing it soundlessly.  He moved closer to the road to have a better view and what he saw dumbfounded him.  All 100 were floating in the air.  All of them were covered in mud.  He could even see each face of the figure when he got close enough.  In the shadow he could see the sad faces of these people.  At the end of the long parade were two "Santilmo" or balls of fire hovering after the throng of people.  He followed the group and they all disappeared at the bridge.

People got mentally deranged because of the severe trauma that they have experienced.  One person consulted a doctor asking for her daughter because the daughter cannot sleep at night and would always play druing the day talking to her "friends."  The daughter claimed that she was playing with her "playmates," the ones who unfortunately did not make it.  These children were also the ones who kept her awake at night because they would ask her to help them.  They were all covered in mud and some with blood.  It is as if at night they would reinact what happened to them.

Until today, both the living and the dead are seeking closure to what happened during that horrible night in December of 2011.  They say that dying from accidents prevent the souls of the dead to reconcile with the fact that they have died and so they continue to linger among us.  Acting like they are still one of us.  Still living with us.  When will they rest?

White Lady

"White" pertains to a color which is pure or bright and "Lady" is a polite term for any woman, hence, the nomenclature White Lady.  Sounds harmless? Perhaps.

Have you heard of some old wives' tales concerning a mythical creature called the White Lady?  It is a creature conjured by the imagination that has been around for several centuries.  Here in the Philippines, it is one of the most popular topics in the countryside since it is usually seen, according to many, in the hinterlands.  In fact there have been countless accounts regarding White Lady sightings and some are even documented in writing and in video.

One tale worth imparting is the experience of my colleague back when she was just a toddler.  Her family was living in an area adjacent to the City of Iligan Cemetery.  But contrary to what one would expect, the incident did not happen at the cemetery rather it happened at the vacant lot a few steps from their home.  It happened unexpectedly, the shy girl of five years was playing with her siblings.  They were running around chasing each other in the yard when all of a sudden she saw a white figure standing at one corner facing her.  She could not figure out the face of the lady dressed in pure white.  According to her, she did not know that she was supposed to be afraid of the apparition. She just stared back at the woman and was shocked.  She was unable to speak for several minutes that her siblings went to their father because they were already alarmed for she was rooted on the spot, frozen.  Nobody else saw the figure but it stayed there at the same time that she was speechless and wide-eyed.  Tears were streaming down her face and nobody knew why.  Her father even slapped her to shake her out of her catatonic state. 

The next time she saw the figure was more appalling because she saw the eyes of the figure.  Blood-red eyes staring at her with such intensity that she could not fathom in her tender age.  It was full of rage and she was scared.  She went into a panic state and was shaking and crying uncontrollably. Eversince that day, she was always haunted by the eyes belonging to the lady dressed in white.  The figure was just a fleeting image of something dressed in white with long hair.  Up to this moment, she could not accurately describe in detail what she saw on those several occasions.  One thing for sure though, the apparition followed her wherever she went even until recently.  from the moment she told her father about what she saw on that day, her father made sure that she was protected by always going with her wherever she went and even to the extent of moving to another house just to make her feel safe.  But no matter where she went she would always have an encounter with the "White Lady."  One night, she was laying down her bed in their new house, staring up the ceiling when her attention was riveted to a small hole by the window.  There, staring right back at her was the same blood shot eyes of the "White Lady."  She caught glimpses of the "White Lady" even while she was growing  up anywhere she went. 

Everything went well when she got married or that's what she thought.  The "White Lady" never bothered her anymore.  Until one night when she was awakened by a soft and caressing voice calling out her name.  It was the "White Lady" rekindling their acquaintance.