I first encountered the supernatural when I was still a baby. The elders in our family told me that I was a sickly baby. They say the cause was the "unseen" that lived in our neighborhood. It further aggravated the situation when the roots of a "duldul" or "kapok" tree went under the floor of our wood-house. There was no month that I would not get sick. Babies ought to be sickly but mine's not ordinary.
Once (my father shared this with me) when I was very sick, my father was taking care of me and making me sleep in a little hammock. He was covering me with a mosquito net and in the process; he himself went asleep beside the hammock. He dreamt that he saw the devil appeared, grabbed the kerosene night-lamp, opened the mosquito net and poured the kerosene in the hammock where I was in. After pouring the kerosene, the devil put the hammock on fire. My father woke up in the middle of the nightmare. He immediately checked if I was alright. He said he was crying when he saw that I was OK and that it was all a dream.
Another time, when we were still living in that same house, I was still a kid of 3-years, another incident happened. These are still very clear in my memory. I was not sick then. I saw several small men. They were about 2-feet in height (of course, I do not know how to measure then). They look old with white beard, wearing pointed-hats, colorful clothes, and pointed-shoes. In modern times, we call them elves or dwarves (though Prof. Tolkien changed that entire look). Like the Snow White dwarves.
My mother and aunt were asking me then who was I talking to. I told them about these small people and that they were asking me to go with them. They were offering me delicious foods, drinks and lots of toys. They were showing me beautiful places (as I can still clearly remember, they were like doing a PowerPoint presentation). But I rejected their offers because I would be scolded by my mother and that I do not want to leave my parents and aunties.
A "manug luy-a luy-a" or "albularyo" came handy in our situation. Every month or almost every two weeks, my parents would bring me to an "albularyo." She would place me under "kamangyan" or place pounded ginger with her saliva on me. Then miraculously, I would be feeling better. She would even tell my parents that a visitor (unseen) passed by our house and admired me. Or a human visitor passed by and had an admiration with my lips or eyes or nose or whatever (hey, I was a cute-baby!). The "albularyo," her name's "Manang Gunda," said that I would be having these sickness every time someone admired my looks either vocally or not. This will go on until I reach the age of 12 years. I should be carrying a ginger with me every time. True to it, when I was in Grade 6, I never experienced any unnatural sickness anymore. Perhaps I became un-admirable already :) .
Have you seen a needle (injection needle) come out of a person's tongue and inject it to your skin? I did. I was in Grade5 when this woman from Mindanao came over my uncle's house in Bacolod City. They say she was possessed by the spirit of the Sto. Nino (child-Jesus) and when it happens, she can heal and predict the future or would know what the persons around her are thinking. Her healing power comes out totally when she injects, literally, a needle that comes out from her mouth to the individual. Though there were non-believers in our family, it was also hard to explain how a needle would come out from a tongue of a person. An uncle of mine even pulled the needle and it was like glued to her tongue! Believe it or not.
When I was in college, my family experienced another weird event in our family. Though I did not saw it first hand, my parents, uncles, aunts, brothers, cousins saw and experienced "spirit possession" and "exorcism" first hand. This event happened in 1992 when my female cousin, who used to stay with us in our house, experienced a psychological disturbance that lots of people call "spirit possession."
My female cousin became sick, her voice changed (female to male), her strength tripled (my mother, 2 aunties, my father and uncle could not contain her in bed), and her eyes turned so red. These descriptions were relayed to me by my parents. Once, they were praying the "Lord's Prayer" and when they reach the words "deliver us from evil...," my cousin would should and cover her ears. She said it was painful for her to say the words and it hurts her tongue, her ears.
Fortunately, she recovered when my brother (who is now a priest) called our friends in the seminary (MMHC) to help us with prayers, and for whatever spiritual action needed. A priest (Fr. Francis) and two seminarians, Bros. Blaise and another one I forgot, came over. They too experienced the unexplained. Upon reaching the corner (kanto) of our place, their vehicle malfunctioned. They checked everything but the jeep would not start up again. No ignition. No contact. But checking it all up, the vehicle's A-OK. They decided to walk towards the house. After the "healing", the jeep was starting up again.
The priests and the seminarians said that they experienced a very unnatural event and that, yes, prayers and our faith are still very powerful weapons against evil. Fr. Francis said he just performed blessing with the oil (annointation) and not "exorcism." The latter would require the priests to ask permission from a bishop and that the priest should be older or experienced.
Thirty and so years in this world, I continue to experience the "supernatural," the "unexplained," "kababalaghan." I experienced some "unexplained" events in my apartment in Pasig. Once, we were watching TV and a shadow of a man/woman went down the stairs and went up again. Three of us saw it. In the same apartment, my brother, Lorenz, saw a big shadow passed by him when he woke up from a light sleep.Another brother, B-bing, felt a big man, watching him while he was printing shirts. My brod, Doy, had a nightmare and saw a big man picked him up in his bed and pounded him on the walls. My experience in the dream with the big guy was that I challenged him to a fight. I clobbered him... and as unexplainable as it is, we never felt the big guy after that dream. We called him "Jumbo."
So many stories to tell... so little time. So little space. Believers or non-believers, I am sure majority of human beings experienced in one-way or the other something unexplained related to spirits, ghosts, or whatever they call it in their cultures. A lot of things or events in this world or in this universe are things that can not be explained. Like asking about God, Heaven or hell or if there are people in Mars. Who can really tell?
"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies." (from Peter Pan)
