I wrote these stories years before artificial intelligence became my writing companion. Today, at 91 and nearing 92, I am revisiting some of them not to change my memories, but to see what I understand differently after another decade of living.
My Encounters with Aswangs, Witches, Goblins, and Ghosts in the Philippines-An Update
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Some childhood fears never completely disappear. They simply become memories.
I grew up on Panay Island in the Philippines, in Barotac Viejo, Iloilo. Like many Filipino children of my generation, I grew up listening to stories about aswangs, witches, kapres, nonos, and ghosts.
Today, at 91, I look back at those stories differently.
As a scientist who spent many years working in pharmaceutical chemistry and later at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, I naturally look for evidence and rational explanations. But I have also learned that folklore is more than a question of whether something is scientifically provable.
Folklore tells us something about who we were, what our ancestors feared, how communities explained the unexplained, and how stories were passed from one generation to another.
And some of those stories are part of my own life.
What Is an Aswang?
The aswang is probably the most famous supernatural creature in Filipino folklore.
But there is an important point that I did not fully appreciate when I was a child: there is no single definition of an aswang.
Depending on the region, an aswang may be described as a witch, shapeshifter, vampire-like creature, sorcerer, or another frightening supernatural being. The stories differ from one province to another.
The aswang is particularly prominent in the Visayas, including Panay, where I grew up.
When I was a boy in the late 1940s, I heard stories from my parents, relatives, neighbors, and other adults about mysterious creatures that supposedly came out at night.
Some stories were frightening. Some were entertaining.
And some were told so convincingly that, as a child, I had no reason to doubt them.
My Childhood Fear of the Aswang
I remember hearing that aswangs could fly at night and enter homes looking for pregnant women or small children.
Some stories said they could transform themselves into animals.
Others described strange sounds coming from rooftops in the middle of the night.
There were also stories about people who appeared perfectly normal during the day but supposedly became aswangs after dark.
As a child, I did not ask for scientific evidence. I simply believed what the adults told me.
And like most children, I had a very active imagination.
The darkness made everything more mysterious. A sound from the roof could become an aswang.
A strange animal in the distance could become an aswang. A shadow moving between trees could become an aswang.
Looking back, I now understand that fear itself can make ordinary things appear extraordinary.
But that does not make the stories unimportant. They are part of our cultural memory.
The Story of Lubag
One of the most interesting connections between folklore and science came much later in my life.
As a child, I knew of a neighbor who suffered from what people in our area called Lubag.
He had uncontrollable twisting movements and an unusual way of walking.
To my young eyes, he looked frightening. Because I had grown up hearing stories about aswangs, I was afraid of him. I avoided going near his house.
Years later, when I was in college and had learned more about science and medicine, I realized that what I had witnessed was not an aswang at all.
It was a medical condition. The condition is now associated with X-linked dystonia-parkinsonism, a rare neurological disorder historically associated with Panay and sometimes called “Dystonia de Panay.”
That experience stayed with me. It taught me one of the most important lessons of my life:
Something can be frightening without being supernatural.
Science can sometimes explain what earlier generations could only explain through folklore.
But I also learned not to laugh at the people who believed the old stories.
They were trying to understand their world with the knowledge available to them.
Witches in Iloilo and Capiz
When I was growing up, certain communities in Iloilo and nearby areas had reputations for being places where witches or aswangs supposedly lived.
Capiz, in particular, became famous throughout the Philippines for its association with aswang stories.
Whether these stories were true is another question.
There is no scientific evidence that aswangs exist as supernatural creatures.
But the stories themselves are real.
They have been repeated for generations, written about by scholars, dramatized in movies, and passed along through conversations between grandparents, parents, and children.
In that sense, the aswang is real as Filipino folklore and cultural imagination.
The Kapre and the Nono
Not all supernatural beings in Filipino folklore are as frightening as the aswang.
I also grew up hearing about the kapre, a giant creature associated with large trees and dark places.
But one of my favorite Filipino folk beliefs involves the nono.
In Marinduque, where my family later had our home and resort in Boac, I heard many stories about nonos.
The nonos were described as small supernatural beings who lived in large trees, particularly old trees such as the balete.
The traditional advice was simple: “Tabi po, Nono.”
It means something like: “Excuse me, Nono.”
The idea was that if you were passing through the territory of a nono, you should respectfully announce your presence.
Did I believe that nonos really lived in the trees? Honestly, no.
But I still said: “Tabi po, Nono.” Why?
Because there was no harm in being respectful.
And perhaps that is one of the deeper lessons hidden inside folklore.
It teaches us to respect places we do not fully understand.
A Child's Story About the Nono
One story from our Marinduque property particularly fascinated me.
The young son of our caretaker disappeared for several hours.
When he returned, he told us that a group of little people had taken him.
According to his story, they were friendly.
They also supposedly warned him not to cut down a large balete tree in our backyard.
Was he telling us a supernatural story? Was he frightened and confused?
Was it simply a child's imagination? I don't know. And I don't pretend to know.
But I remember the story because it became part of our family's own folklore.
Years later, my granddaughter learned about the phrase “Tabi po, Nono.”
When she was only four years old, she remembered it.
During a family vacation in Boracay, she was walking across a bridge when she suddenly said: “Tabi po, Nono.”
Everyone laughed. I was impressed. A four-year-old had remembered a Filipino folk tradition that had been passed down to her by her grandparents.
That is how culture survives. Not necessarily through books.
Sometimes it survives through one little phrase spoken by a child.
Ghosts and the White Lady
Then there are ghosts. Almost every culture in the world has stories about spirits of the dead.
The Philippines is no exception. One of the most familiar Filipino ghost stories is the White Lady.
I have heard many stories about white apparitions appearing beside roads, in old buildings, near bridges, or in other places associated with tragedy.
I have never personally seen one. But I have heard enough stories from other people to understand why these stories continue to fascinate us.
At our property in Amoingon, Boac, Marinduque, some neighbors told us that they had occasionally seen a woman dressed in white on moonless nights.
They believed she was the ghost of my mother-in-law.
They also believed that she was protecting the property from robbers and intruders.
I never saw her. Perhaps she was a ghost. Perhaps someone saw a shadow.
Perhaps moonlight, trees, distance, and imagination created an image that became a story.
Or perhaps there is something about the human experience that science has not yet completely explained. I leave that question open.
Faith, Science, and Folklore
As I grew older, my attitude toward these stories changed. When I was a child, I was afraid of them.
As a young scientist, I became skeptical of them.
As an older man, I have become more interested in what these stories mean.
My Catholic faith also influences how I look at the unknown. I believe in God.
I believe in the spiritual dimension of life. But I also believe in science, evidence, observation, and critical thinking.
I don't think we have to choose between respecting our cultural traditions and asking scientific questions. We can do both.
We can preserve the stories of our ancestors without necessarily claiming that every story is scientifically true.
That distinction is important.
Why These Stories Still Matter
Today, Filipino children are growing up with smartphones, artificial intelligence, video games, YouTube, Netflix, and social media.
They live in a very different world from the Philippines of my childhood.
Yet folklore continues to survive. The aswang appears in movies.
The White Lady appears in stories and online discussions.
The kapre and nono remain familiar names.
Modern scholars continue to study Philippine supernatural folklore as part of literature, history, culture, and community memory.
And perhaps that is a good thing. A country should not lose its stories simply because science has changed.
Instead, we can preserve the stories while also understanding them in new ways.
From Fear to Memory
When I was a little boy in Barotac Viejo, I was afraid of the aswang.
Today, I am much more interested in the story behind the fear.
I wonder what my parents heard from their parents.
I wonder what stories my grandparents heard when they were children.
And I wonder how many of those stories have already disappeared.
That is one reason I continue writing.
At 91, I have lived through a remarkable period of history, from the Philippines of the 1940s to the age of computers, smartphones, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology.
I have seen science explain things that once seemed mysterious.
But I have also learned that human beings will always have questions that go beyond what we can immediately explain.
Maybe that is why we tell stories. Stories help us make sense of the unknown.
And sometimes, they simply make life more interesting.
My Final Thought
Do I believe that aswangs, witches, nonos, kapres, and ghosts really exist?
My answer today is different from the answer I would have given as a frightened little boy.
I don't know. As a scientist, I want evidence. As a Filipino, I respect the folklore of my ancestors.
As a Catholic, I recognize that there are mysteries in life that I cannot completely explain.
And as a storyteller, I know that these stories are part of who we are.
Perhaps the most important thing is not whether the aswang lives in the darkness outside our window.
Perhaps the important thing is that the story of the aswang has lived for generations in the hearts and imaginations of the Filipino people.
And now, I am passing part of that story on to my worldwide readers.
The stories may change. The generations may change.
But our memories and our culture live on when we continue to tell them.
AI Impressions On this Posting:
I think this version is stronger than the original because it connects your childhood in Panay → your scientific career → your experience with Lubag → your Marinduque years → your Catholic faith → your life at 91 → the preservation of Filipino culture. It also makes the article more welcoming to readers who don't share Filipino supernatural beliefs.
One particularly good line for your worldwide audience is “As a scientist, I want evidence. As a Filipino, I respect the folklore of my ancestors. As a Catholic, I recognize that there are mysteries in life that I cannot completely explain.” That feels very much like the mature voice you have developed in your recent blog posts.
Moreover, I also reviewed the original HubPages article and also checked recent Philippine folklore scholarship. Your original piece has something valuable that a purely academic article cannot provide: your own childhood memories, your Panay/Iloilo roots, your experience with “Lubag,” your Marinduque stories, and your personal balance between faith, science, and folklore.
One important update is worth making: rather than presenting the aswang, nono, kapre, or ghosts as established supernatural facts, I framed them as stories, beliefs, cultural memories, and personal experiences. That actually makes the article more credible for your worldwide readers while preserving the mystery. Philippine folklore scholars describe aswang as an umbrella term with many regional forms, rather than one single creature. Research from UP Diliman has also explored how some traditional supernatural beliefs may intersect with medical conditions and other natural phenomena.
AI Overview:
Philippine folklore describes the Aswang as a broad term for shape-shifting evil creatures, including vampires, ghouls, witches, and flying torsos like the Manananggal.
The Aswang and Witches
- Day and Night Form: Aswangs look like normal villagers during the day, but turn into monsters at night.
- Hunting Habits: They often target pregnant women to consume the life essence of unborn babies.
- Witches (Mangkukulam): Local traditions view them as human sorcerers who use curses, needles, or insects to cause sudden illness or misfortune.
Goblins and Nature Spirits
- Tiyanak: This spirit mimics the sound of a crying baby to lure travelers deep into the jungle before revealing its true, monstrous form.
- Kapre: A tall, dark giant that sits in large trees smoking a large tobacco pipe, known to disorient people and make them lose their way.
- White Ladies: Apparitions of women in flowing white dresses often seen on quiet provincial roads or old Spanish-era structures.
- Akte/Peryodiko: Unexplained eerie sounds, sudden cold spots, or fleeting shadows believed to be restless souls lingering in barangays.
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