slacker mommy files

    Lately, I have been reading books written by local authors. One of them is an anthology of short stories entitled To Catch a Falling Star, written by Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo. One of the stories in the book bears the title The Mangkukulam (The Witch), tackles the attitudes of Trissy’s parents regarding superstitions. In that particular narrative, the child’s parents have a bias against local religious and tribal superstitions, while propagating the belief in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Peter Pan, and Cinderella.

    I am also puzzled at this preference for foreign beliefs. Why would any parent forbid their children the rich traditions of our ancestors handed to us through stories of the nuno, the lambana, the tikbalang and of course, the aswang and the mangkukulam? What difference do they have from Santa Claus, from elves and dwarfs, and pumpkins that turn into silver coaches? The packaging maybe? The marketing? The publishing? Why are our fantastical creatures less amazing than their international counter parts?


    Well, maybe it has all started when the Spaniards first came to conquer the Philippines. To rid the Indios of their cultural identity, and to “convert” them into Christianity, they regarded all tribal beliefs as heresy and “of the Devil.” They thrust their own religion upon us despite our incomprehension and declared us “saved” while all our ancestral knowledge has been rendered as barbarism and savagery. Three hundred years later, the Americans taught us Science in schools, claiming that superstitions are, but smoke in the brilliance of science; while all the same; they gave us Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. It may have been rooted from our gratitude that we embraced these foreign beliefs while we shunned our own, for fear of being ridiculed, and perceived as simpletons. Our basic cultural foundation suffered.

    Superstitions are a part of a society’s cultural identity. Somehow, having been stripped of that basic, elementary, yet influential knowledge, we have also been stripped of our own identity. We view our own stories of the aswang, tikbalang and Maria Makiling with scorn and indifference as we somehow try to define and redefine what being a Filipino is. On the other hand, at least, that is what I think. Just as much as a certain person keeps trying to characterize himself to himself repeatedly, he repeatedly fails at this task since he has forgotten his basic identity. He has finally become someone who has no face, so to speak.

    Anyway, I have rambled on, again. Back to the story: the child had suspicions that their washerwoman was a witch but she never cared is she is. She had her friend back and that was what mattered. Maybe if we could look past the apparent absurdity of our superstitions, maybe we can find a bit of ourselves, bits of our fears and hopes, and then maybe we will learn a bit more about ourselves.