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Most cultures on earth, be they traditional or contemporary,
have beliefs surrounding spirits of the dead
returning to manifest themselves to the living.
This was the main theme that led me to write
the first two installments of Island Scares.
My extended family, from great grandparents
to the current generation, seemed to have
experienced unexplained phenomena that could
be described as ghostly activity; spirits
making themselves felt in one form or another.
I thought the whole business
of writing about these things done, satisfied
that I had exhausted my entire mental archives
of the unusual and the bizarre as I had experienced
and as told me by relatives, friends and acquaintances.
But then the eyes and ears are enemies of
contentment. Reading what I had penned, folks
around me started calling with “Did
you know that...” and “Do you
remember about this one...”
I must say, up front, that
my personal outlook on the subject of ghosts
has not changed. My father, an eminently accomplished
scholar, artist, linguist, musician, athlete,
marksman, carpenter, hunter, cook, university
professor and world traveler, and a veteran
of the guerilla war against Imperial Japan,
often told me as a little boy, “Huwag
kang matakot sa patay, matakot ka sa buhay”
– “Don’t fear the dead,
fear the living.”
Indeed, my greater fears
and concerns have to do with living beings,
those among us who would cause us physical
or material harm. I have entered unfamiliar
dark places alone, been to graveyards at the
midnight hour, and gone ghost hunting without
ever having seen, heard, felt or smelled what
I consider to be actual unearthly presences.
It doesn’t mean they don’t exist,
only that I have never had the pleasure or
displeasure of meeting them. So on this, I
have to agree with my father’s admonition
and rather be on the alert against everyday,
living vermin like burglars, con men, carjackers
and home invaders.
This third offering of Island
Scares attempts to do a little house cleaning,
picking up loose ends and items I may have
left out in the prior two segments. So here
we go again: grab a chair and sit close to
the hearth as I relate other spooky tales
that may or may not signify the presence of
spirits among us.
When my family and I first
came to the United States from the Philippines
in the mid-1970s, everyone went through the
typical immigrant experience. We got our share
of getting picked on, sometimes without realizing
it owing to our lack of familiarity with American
culture and jargon at the time (my parents,
profoundly, taught us not to dwell on the
setbacks but to keep our eyes on the positive
goals). We lived in cramped conditions, seven
people in a two-bedroom apartment, some having
to sleep on the couch or old army cots. We
also picked up any job we could just to eke
out a basic existence.
One of my first jobs was
working as a dietary aide, AKA dishwasher,
for a convalescent hospital outside Sacramento.
Serving in that capacity meant I was the last
man out of the kitchen as the cooks and servers
all left after completing their chores. A
commonly-repeated occurrence was my hearing,
or imagining, whispering voices in the dark
corners back of the kitchen. Curiously, this
did not scare me at the time. I recalled my
father’s repeated command, “Huwag
kang duwag,” or “Don’t be
a coward” and kept on with my assigned
chores. I told my mother, an English and drama
teacher for a Catholic college back home,
about this when I came home one night and
she said it made some sense because of the
nature of the facility. Many patients there
had indeed died and some may have had restless
spirits. I only worked at the hospital for
a couple of months because the telephone company
soon came calling and I found work as an operator.
About the same time as this,
my youngest sister, then 11 years old, related
something that terrified her. It was a habit
for my younger brother and her to leave a
glass of water by the nightstand so they didn’t
have to go to the fridge when they got thirsty
in the middle of the night. During that particular
night, through eyes half-asleep, she saw what
she thought was my brother pick up the glass
and take a drink. She turned and was shocked
to see my brother asleep in the couch at the
opposite side of the room. Paralyzed with
fear, she hid under the blanket and did not
emerge until the morning.
My brother once told of
seeing a small boy sitting on top of the tall
cabinet in their room. He could see the little
legs swinging, he said, in a manner indicative
of play. The boy was dressed in school clothes
and our family guessed he may have been the
spirit of someone who once attended the nearby
grade school.
Closer to our time, I have
come across some puzzling incidents, both
at work and at home. At an apartment complex
where I served as a security guard, I was
walking the beat on the second floor one night
when, looking out the hallway window, I thought
I saw an arm (only an arm!) floating in the
air from right to left. It was cut off at
the shoulder and had on a white shirt sleeve.
Wanting to get a closer look, I peered through
the glass to see if it might have been a cat
walking across a balcony railing. There was
no balcony there.
At the same apartment complex,
I once entered to check an empty unit and
clearly heard the phrase, “...will be
slow in coming” emanating from a high
corner of the room. I thought the voice might
have come from the heating vent and strained
to listen for any further sounds, but none
came. With a colorful imagination, I also
mentally filled in the first part of the phrase
and came up with the disturbing line, “Your
death will be slow on coming.” I exited
the apartment, and not very slowly.
Sometimes I hear the sound
of footsteps and creaking on the second story
of our house in the middle of the night. On
a couple of occasions, my wife has also heard
this and asked me to check for an intruder
or intruders. Arming myself appropriately
with handgun, club and knife, I have always
come up empty-handed. Just the house settling
in with contraction and expansion due to weather
change, we reckoned. Neither of us has seen
anything to the contrary.
Finally, I have seen what
I thought was my son running into the bedroom
while brushing my teeth at night. The bathroom
mirror faces the direction of the bedroom,
providing a full view of the room when the
door is open. This has happened twice. The
first time it did, I was so convinced it was
he that entered that I called his name. Getting
no answer, I went to the room to find it empty.
After the second time, I just made sure to
close the door as I brushed as a solution.
While some may jump at these
events and claim them as indications of ghostly
activity, I remain not so convinced. If there
were indeed ghosts, or spirits or manifestations
or whatever other term one might use to describe
them, I wonder what the reason was for their
making themselves felt and why they didn’t
persist and try to actually communicate with
the persons involved.
A common condition behind
all of the above incidents was that the person
involved was typically alone in a quiet environment,
a condition that fostered the imagination
running wild. It may be different had there
been a group of people experiencing the same
sensations. I don’t consider myself
extraordinarily brave or daring, but I’m
not gullible either. I might jump at being
startled, but I’m not going to jump
to conclusions and say spirits visited us
in any of these episodes.
Something more menacing
and that many native Filipinos still believe
in are the monsters from lower Philippine
mythology, like the manananggal, a half-bodied
flying demon; the tikbalang or half-man half-horse;
the kapre, a dark-skinned giant; and the tiyanak,
which takes the deceiving form of a helpless
lost infant. These are more worrisome because
they are material and can cause physical harm
to their victims. But they would also be for
another article, another time...
About JOSE
G. PAMAN
A native of Manila, the Philippines, Jose
G. Paman is an award-winning martial arts
author and expert with five books and more
than 100 articles under his pen. He works
full-time for a government agency investigating
identity theft and license fraud. He is also
a certified expert in the Tagalog language
of the Philippines, a singer, guitarist, percussionist
and Polynesian dancer. He has gone ghost-hunting
with HPI (Haunted and Paranormal Investigations
based out of Sacramento, Calif.) and, just
returned from Oahu, Hawaii, is completing
his first horror novel.
For an in-depth interview
with Paman by Blue Snake Books, visit:
http://bluesnakeblog.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/of-pen-and-sword-interview-questions-for-jose-g-paman/
ISLAND SCARES 2: GHOST STORIES FROM THE PHILIPPINES
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The official website for Aswang: A Journey Into Myth. Brought to you by High Banks Entertainment Ltd.
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The official website for The Aswang Phenomenon. The only complete documentary regarding the aswang, brought to you by High Banks Entertainment Ltd.
aswangmovie.com/Aswang%20Phenomenon.htm - Cached -
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May 29, 2011 ... Don't forget to follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/ aswangmovie . Posted by High Banks Entertainment Ltd. at 11:07 AM ...
aswangmovie.blogspot.com/ - Cached -
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