Karaoke: Made in the Philippines?

Who really invented the karaoke machine?

Filipinos do love singing, and they usually go to bars with karaoke machines or KTV bars to entertain themselves. Singing in karaoke machines also benefited some Filipinos bringing them to stardom, like Arnel Pineda of Journey.

Sadly, this way of entertainment of Filipinos irritated some of the sensitive-eared people, who just wanted a very quiet day. Even some of the foreigners were annoyed of this. Well, I can't blame Filipinos if they like to put a karaoke machine in every celebration they hold outside their houses, especially in the streets. They just wanted to show others that they were happy. I don't know if that's the reason.

Anyway, let's go to the main event.

If you ask someone about who invented this machine, some Filipinos would answer it was invented by a Filipino, but some would say its the Japanese. So I would like to put this confusion in clarity because it even led itself to an urban legend. What makes this an urban legend? Well, it's because many people ignored the truth about it.

Introduction

The word karaoke came from Japanese words kara (which means empty) and oke (simplified word for okesutora or orchestra in English). It is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music (a music video) using a microphone and public address system.[a]

In a karaoke machine, the typical songs installed are pop songs such as that of Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra and etc. It also includes some of the local songs where the karaoke is used. However the songs on it doesn't have the voice of the original singer, only the sound and lyrics of the song.

Japanese Karaoke

The considered inventor of the first karaoke machine is the Japanese musician Daisuke Inoue. He invented what he called the Juke-8 in 1971.

Japanese drummer Daisuke Inoue was asked frequently by guests in the Utagoe Kissa, where he performed, to provide recordings of his performances so that they could sing along. Realizing the potential for the market, Inoue made a tape recorder-like machine that played songs for a 100-yen coin each. Instead of giving his karaoke machines away, Inoue leased them out so that stores did not have to buy new songs on their own.[a]

Philippine Karaoke

Here in the Philippines, the considered inventor was Roberto del Rosario, the president of the Trebel Music Corporation. He invented his Karaoke Sing Along System in 1975, which is 4 years after Daisuke Inoue invented his version.

Roberto del Rosario described his sing-along system as a handy multi-purpose compact machine which incorporates an amplifier speaker, one or two tape mechanisms, optional tuner or radio and microphone mixer with features to enhance one's voice, such as the echo or reverb to stimulate an opera hall or a studio sound, with the whole system enclosed in one cabinet casing.[b]

But because he patented his invention and put it in commercial purposes, he was considered the first inventor - the first patented producer.

Other Karaoke

Aside of the two persons above, there was actually another company who was also considered the first inventor - the Clarion company. They were actually the first producer, but there is no existence of the patent.

Sources:
a. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaoke
b. http://inventors.about.com/od/filipinoscientists/p/Karaoke.htm

The Secret of University of Santo Tomas

University of Santo Tomas was one of the oldest universities in the Philippines. Even our national hero Dr. Jose P. Rizal studied here.

The university is a private, Roman Catholic, teaching and research university run by the Order of Preachers in Manila. Founded on 28 April 1611 by archbishop of Manila Miguel de Benavides, it has the oldest extant university charter in the Philippines and in Asia and is one of the world's largest Catholic universities in terms of enrollment found on one campus.

"beneath it was something, hidden for almost nine millenniums, waiting for something..." There's a popular myth in the Philippines that the University of Santo Tomas was hiding something beneath it. It was said that there is a secret underground passageway beneath it and it also hides plenty of secret doorways. They said, that it was St. Thomas Aquinas who planned and wrote the testament order to be given to the Dominican priests to build that kind of passages. It was said, that from the Arc of the centuries towards the Main building, you will see unexplainable languages, words, and symbols being etched at the side of the hallway. And that's true! I've seen those prints because I'm a student of this university. Although three of these secret doorways has been revealed, there is no passageway that we could find directing us into the main underground passageway. We are wondering if this is only a myth or reality. And we are thinking, if we could crack the codes etched through the hallway, maybe it can lead us through the secret underground passageway where secrets are meant to be secrets forever. The big question is... Why does St. Thomas needs to order those Dominican priests to build this kind of passageway? What's inside this passageway, and what does it contains? How come that this passageway has been able to be kept for almost nine millenniums without the knowledge of our fellow university men? What does the codes mean? Does the positioning of the University or the above photo of the university can give us hints? Does the Quadricentennial square of this university and its 'arc of the century' have a relationship to this so called "myth"? I'm just wondering because I'm a student of this university...

Being the oldest university in Asia, it is possible that such school may hide some door ways beneath its buildings.

I didn't know about this urban legend, so I have nothing to comment about it. I still find some information that can explain this.

Source:
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=160579
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Santo_Tomas

Tasaday - Hoax or Genuine

Have you heard about the Tasaday Tribe? (The one which people considered as a Stone Age Tribe.) If yes, do you think this tribe is real? Or just a hoax? If they were not true, then someone was behind this greatest scandal.

Actually, till now no one knows who to believe - the debunkers or the believers. The Tasaday people are the only one who know if they were really true or just paid actors by Manuel Elizalde. Like what Ethnologist Thomas Headland said,

.... the Tasaday were a hoax when viewed as a group of paid actors that paraded around the forest wearing leaves.
.... they were authentic if they were viewed as a forest-dwelling group of people caught in the midst of the media.

For the sake of this discussion, let's think they were in the middle of true and fake. NO BIAS.

About the Tasaday Tribe

The Tasaday tribe is an indigenous people of Mindanao, island South of Philippines. They are considered belonging in the Lumad group together with the other indigenous people found in the same island. These group of people were believed to be living in the caves of the Philippine rain forest, secluding themselves to the others, and are not aware of their surroundings. They were wearing only orchid leaves and have their diet with fruits, fishes and insects. This tribe was called Stone Age Tribe because of their way of living which resembles that of the Stone Age people from the past, and, of course, they use stone tools.

Tasaday language is distinct from that of their neighboring tribes - Manobo in the east and Tboli in the west. They even don't have in their dialect the words war, hate, enemy, conflict and the like. However, in the mid-1980s, according to Linguistics Anthropologist Carol Malony their language was 80% similar to Manobos'.

As of 2008, their population is only 216.

Discovery

On June 7, 1971, a local Manobo hunter from the village of Blit told Manuel Elizalde about their accidental encounters with this primitive tribe. A month later, he released the discovery in the media. Visitors were very excited in seeing them. But weeks after announcement of the news, the visitors were blocked by PANAMIN guards. They only allow important visitors to meet them.

By the way, Manuel Elizalde was at that time the head of the government agency PANAMIN, which protects the interest of cultural minorities. He also took credit in the discovery of Tasaday Tribe.

In June, 1971, Elizalde with his bodyguard, helicopter pilot, a doctor, a student, named Edith Terry, and a local tribespeople for interpreting purposes, met with the Tasaday people in the edge of the forest.

In March, 1972, another meeting was held, this time in the home site of the tribe, between Elizalde, and members of press and media including the Associated Press and National Geographic Society.

Being brought out to the world, Tasaday became so popular that they caught the attention of all medias, famous anthropologists and celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and Gina Lollobrigida.

Ethno-botanist Douglas Yen, Linguistics Anthropologist Carol Malony, and Father Sean McDonaugh studied the newly discovered tribe.

Anthropologists Zeus Salazar, Gerald Berraman, Alan Barnard and Swiss Anthropologist Journalist Oswald Iten told the media that the tribe was an absolute fake, that they were just making a great show to the whole world.

Studies of the Believers and Debunkers

Ethno-botanist Douglas Yen studies the ways of different cultures in how they utilize plants. He was also a strong believer that the tribe was definitely a genuine Stone Age tribe. He lived with them for about a month and what he found out was that they actually live resembling that of the Stone Age people. Also, according to him, they live by just eating relatively a low carbohydrate and protein foods.

He made an experiment using rice plants. He asked some children about it, and no one had an idea. This proves that they have no exposure to outside world. The rice grow outside there place and yet no one of them discovered it. Tasadays eat a different variety of rice, different from his sample, but they call it in other names. Tasaday was a hunting and gathering civilization and they never planted rice, so children never know it unless they plant some.

Linguistics Anthropologist Carol Malony studied the tribe's language if they were related with others. According to her, their language was 80% similar to Manobos'. Thus, it only mean they have contact with each other or they came from only one tribe but didn't lived longer and evolved together. The media concluded that the two split off around 1200 A.D., meaning they weren't Stone Age Tribe. And this specific conclusion brought out many speculation that the tribe is FAKE.

She also approved to what Yen said that Tasadays had no borrowed words from other languages. If they had, they are good in faking themselves to not saying by a fault any of those words. She also added that upon conversation with children, she found her discovery very strong. It seemed that their language is genuine. There are plenty of rooms for children to come out even a single borrowed word from their mouths in a conversation.

According to Father Sean McDonaugh, he followed them for twenty years, and he had Tboli tribe members with him to examine them. The Tboli tribe found that they were not related to each other.

In 1986, (the time when Marcos government was overthrown) Swiss Anthropologist Journalist Oswald Iten came back to the rain forest accompanied by Joey Lozano, a Filipino reporter, and Datu Galang Tikaw for an unauthorized investigation to the Tasaday cave, they are with six Tasaday for two hours. He saw the cave empty, then Tasadays were wearing T-shirts and jeans, and had footage that they were living in houses (huts). This became the basis of another story of Tasadays - that it was a hoax.

According to him, the Tasaday people were just farmers of Manobo and Tboli tribe, and were forced to live like cavemen by Manuel Elizalde in exchange of payment.

"We didnt live in caves, only near them, until we met Elizalde," they said. "Elizalde forced us to live in the caves so that we'd be better cavemen. Before he came, we lived in huts on the other side of the mountain and we farmed. We took off our clothes because Elizalde told us to do so and promised if we looked poor that we would get assistance. He gave us money to pose as Tasaday and promised us security from counter-insurgency and tribal fighting."

Manuel Elizalde was accused of promising food and clothing to the tribe if they will cooperate with him. He was also rumored that the reason why he made it is just to take their land. (But he was proven to had acquired some lands from other tribes.)

A few weeks later, a team from Dern Stern went there accompanied by the original discoverer of the tribe. There, they saw them again wearing leaves in the cave, with clothes under those leaves. This was supposed to disprove their authenticity.

Anthropologists Zeus Salazar who also believed that Tasaday were not true. He studied the tools that the Tasaday were using. He found out that those tools were not made just like that used by people in Stone Age, that those tools cannot be used in daily activities. With these discovery he concluded that they were fake, and was just used as props for the show.

Anthropologists Gerald Berraman also studied their stone tools. He didn't found any remains of old tools in the cave. Tasaday tribeman told him that after 1970s, they stopped creating stone tools because they were given knives by explorers who visited them. However, this reason, for Barraman, was unbelievable because if they started to use these tools at around 1970s then there should be any remains of their old tools somewhere. He also found out that these people don't have hunting tools nor any rituals and folklores which for him, was an important ways in survival.

Ban to Visitations

In April 1972, (same year when Martial Law was declared) Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos (at the behest of PANAMIN and Lindbergh) declared 19,000 acres (182 km²) of land surrounding the Tasaday's ancestral caves as the Tasaday/Manobo Blit Preserve. By this time, eleven anthropologists had studied the Tasaday in the field, but none for more than six weeks, and in 1976, Marcos issued a decree to close the preserve to all visitors in ... protecting the Tasaday and other unexplored cultural communities from unauthorized entry. This declaration was rumored that Elizalde persuaded Marcos to do such.

One of the reasons for the closing was a number of suspicions that arose. Apparently, their dead were left in the forest under a layer of leaves, yet no bones, compost, or the like were found. Secondly, although the Tasaday had claimed to be living in the jungle at their cave shelter full time, there was no garbage or sign of human waste. Elizalde claimed that among the 24 remaining Tasaday, there was no wife-sharing, adultery, or divorce. Their diet was claimed to be all forage, i.e., wild fruit, palm pith, forest yams, tadpoles, grubs, and roots. The calories in such a diet are less than the amount needed for survival, so they should have been paper thin. The apparent yams that they survive on were experiencing a shortage around the area where they lived. When dietitians and health advisors suggested further research, they were promptly banned from the Tasaday's home. An anthropologist reported seeing soldiers slipping cooked rice to the Tasaday, and he was banned as well.

Prior to the closing of the preserve to visitors, PANAMIN funded essentially all efforts to find, visit, and study, the Tasaday, with most of the money used to "protect" them coming from Elizalde and his family, with a lesser portion provided by the Philippine government. As contact between the Tasaday and the world outside their forest virtually ceased with the banning of visitors to the preserve in 1976, so did expenditures on the Tasaday by PANAMIN.

Rise of Controversy

In a TV program (ABC Televion's) 20/20 two young Tasaday, named Lobo and Adug, told the interviewer, through their translator Datu Galang Tikaw, that they were indeed not Tasaday. Because of this claim, the hoax of Tasaday became the headline worldwide.

Two years after them, in BBC Documentary, they interviewd again the same Tasaday. They showed the video of their interview with the 20/20 program together with other Tasadays. They confessed that what they said in the interview was not true, Galang told them to say those words in exchange of cigarettes, clothing, and anything they wanted. But Galang confirmed those statements.

Others

At the time when Swiss Anthropologist Journalist Oswald Iten came back to the rain forest and found Tasaday wearing clothes and living in houses, it was about 15 years later from the time they were discovered and televised, and had contact with outside world. So in those years, it is possible that they had changed their ways. It doesn't mean that they were cavemen, will be cavemen forever; they were wearing leaves, and will wear leaves forever.

And at the time a team from Dern Stern came back after Iten's encounter, they saw them wearing leaves again. Its not a problem if they wanted to go back in wearing leaves again. Especially, if some of them find clothes irritating (just like Tarzan when he wore a cloth).

Lawrence A. Reid (U. of Hawai'i, Dept. of Linguistics, Emeritus) writes that he spent 10 months with the Tasaday and surrounding linguistic groups (1993–1996) and has concluded that they probably were as isolated as they claim, that they were indeed unfamiliar with agriculture, that their language was a different dialect from that spoken by the closest neighboring group, and that there was no hoax perpetrated by the original group that reported their existence. In his paper 'Linguistic Archaeology: Tracking down the Tasaday Language' Dr. Reid states although he originally thought that an individual Tasaday named Belayem was fabricating data, he later found, after a detailed analysis of the linguistic evidence, around 300 of Belayem's forms were actually used in Kulaman Valley, Manobo (Manobo languages), that Belayem had never visited and did not even know about. Reid also concluded that the Tasaday had not been isolated for a thousand years. He speculated that they split off from the Kulaman Valley Manobos, perhaps about 150 to 200 years ago. They might had fled into the jungle to escape any of disease, and war.

Ethnologist Thomas Headland says that the Tasaday were a tribe that was caught in the midst of a changing world. Headland edited a book composed of all the anthropological articles and data analysis along with the various arguments about the Tasaday and reached the conclusion that the entire Tasaday episode was the result of exaggerations and miscommunications among the media. He said that he doubted the accusations that the Tasaday were paid to live half-naked in the rain forest as dwellers and that he does believe they were a discovered tribe, but not a Stone Age tribe.

According to Headland, the Tasaday tribe incident was the result of the noble savage attitude toward a newly discovered tribe that came during the late 1960s resulting from the wars and the need for peace in the world. Headland also said that the Tasaday were a hoax when viewed as a group of paid actors that paraded around the forest wearing leaves. He said they were authentic if they were viewed as a forest-dwelling group of people caught in the midst of the media. Anthropologists instantly worshipped the Tasaday because they were seen as a new area of study. During this time, everyone thought this tribe was unique because the tribe had no words for war and hate in its society. This belief made way for the conditions of self-fulfilling prophesies that the researchers experienced causing them to only record data that related to their individual theories.

Now the tribe is okay. They are gaining population again, and they learn how to farm.

And its up to you if you believe some of the above information.

By the way, I had watched a documentary by Kara David in I-Witness (GMA): Tasaday Revisited 30 years. She asked Lobo if Tasaday truelly were Tasaday, and he answered a big YES, that they were.

For more about them, click here

Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasaday_people
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,452856,00.html
http://jamesjr.tripod.com/index-3.html
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/the_stone-age_tasaday

No. 14 Laperal

It has been urban legend or just plain curiosity that make the locals and tourists alike flock to # 14 Laperal, or famously know as the "White House" in Baguio City.

Many TV shows and films have capitalized on its notoriety as being haunted.

But what really boggles the mind is the mystery surrounding the history of the house. Many stories have come up about the fate of the Laperal family. No one really knows what happened inside the white structure. Even the relatives of the original owners are mum about it.

The paints are fading. But the popularity of the house just keeps on growing because of the interests of the people in the paranormal.

Who are the ghosts that haunt the Laperal White House? Do they have stories to tell?

I-Witness dared to find out when Jay Taruc and a group of psychics locked themselves inside the house to just feel their "presence."

What the cameras captured were extraordinary sounds and images that will stir the senses.

The Video

Click Here to watch this video in youtube.com

I watched this documentary of Jay Taruc in the middle of the night alone in my room ... This scared me very much, especially of that part where a ghost talked in the CCTV Camera saying, Nandito kame ... (We're hear ...) Till now, I can't forget that ...

Source:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty9_VjYy7Ek

Malacañang Palace

Malacañang Palace is the home of the President of Republic of the Philippines, the symbol of the nation, and also his/her official office. It is located at 1000 José P. Laurel Street, San Miguel, Manila. The house was built in 1750 in Spanish Colonial style. In Spanish Era, it is also the home of Governor-General of the Philippines. It was purchased from a Spanish Aristocrat named Don Luis Rocha, and was purchased by a Spanish Colonel and again purchased by the state, thus became the home of the representatives of Spain in the Philippines.

Yes! It is true. The building was built since the Spanish time. So, it might be true that there is an unknown entity there. Then, what are they?

Male and female figures disappearing into walls. Pianos playing by themselves in the dead of night.

Empty chairs turning, heavy curtains parting, plates vanishing from where you put them. --- Philippine Daily Inquirer

Pres. Noynoy Aquino once said,

No one wants to live in Malacañang proper, because of the eerie environment.

Actually, he prefer to live in the other side of Pasig River - on Bahay Pangarap.

I don?t like the ambience of Malacañang Palace. There's this big balete tree in front [of the state entrance] ... And the guards say sometimes, the pianos start playing by themselves and someone is [heard] marching [down the hall].

Story

[Taken from a News Website:]

Strange things The strongman's son, Senator Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr., narrated tales of ghostly goings-on during the family's 20-year stay in the Spanish-era Palace. There's no doubt about it, many strange things are really happening there, the senator told the Inquirer. Everybody who lived in the Palace, during and after [our stay], including the security and the staff?everybody has experienced something, he said. Eduardo Rozon, chief steward during the Marcos regime, and Bernardo Barcena Jr., a guard posted at the door to the private quarters of the then first family, vividly recall both frightening and hilarious encounters with the unknown in Malacañang. From their stories recounted to the Inquirer last week, it appeared that ghosts haunted not only the numerous state rooms but also the Marcoses? private quarters, and even the adjoining building known as Kalayaan Hall. The chandeliers clanked, the plates in the china room tinkled, and staff members felt their hair rising. The ghostly occurrences always happened in the wee hours?between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., when the Palace was quiet and deserted, according to both Bongbong Marcos and Barcena. During that witching hour, it was common for the staff to see figures appear at the Reception Hall, the massive corridor framed by pictures of all Philippine presidents, and the Ceremonial Hall, the biggest room in the Palace where the most important state functions are held and which served as balcony during the Spanish and American eras. Never their faces You just see them. You think they're your colleagues but they're not. And they always had their backs to us; we never saw their faces, said Barcena, who is now on his second term as barangay councilman in Bagong Nayon in Antipolo City, the housing project awarded by the Marcoses to their household staff. Barcena once walked up to who he thought was a colleague leaning on a panel in the Ceremonial Hall: I was just a few meters from him when he vanished. Frightened, Barcena hurried to tell his colleagues about the experience. Rozon, who supervised the Palace waiters, recalled one night when he was at the Reception Hall and noticed that the door to the Music Room was ajar. (A bedroom during the Spanish time, the Music Room has since been used by first ladies as a sitting room for important state guests.) Rozon said he wondered to his companion what would happen if the half-open door would suddenly close. Then the door did close! We ran downstairs! he said, laughing. Barcena swore that in the same room with no one else around, they heard the piano play and saw the first lady's chair turn by itself. Intrigued by the stories, Bongbong Marcos and his friends decided to go ghost hunting in the courtyard of the private quarters, which had a fountain in the middle. Knock, knock A friend reached for a doorknob, but the door opened before he could touch it. They scrambled upstairs, the senator recalled with a chuckle. It was also common for the family members to hear someone knocking on their doors, always at around 2 a.m. During the renovation of the Palace, Bongbong Marcos said, he used a room adjacent to the State Dining Room as his temporary quarters. (The State Dining Room, originally a ballroom during the Spanish and American times, has three Commonwealth-era chandeliers and 40 carved chairs around a long dining table. It is now where Cabinet meetings are held. Its large French mirrors were installed in 1877, according to the book Malacañan Palace, The Official Illustrated History.) Knocking awakened Bongbong Marcos one night, and when he opened his door, he saw no one there. Suddenly, one of the antique chairs stacked leaning against the dining table righted itself! I couldn't sleep anymore that night, he said. The ghosts also apparently liked telephones. The senator said his mother Imelda had been roused from sleep by the ringing of the phone in her bedroom, also during the wee hours. The next morning she would ask who called her at that time, and of course nobody did, he said. Rozon said the ringing phones even sparked quarrels among the guards, each suspecting his colleagues of pulling a prank. Seeing things It was President Marcos who reportedly kept seeing people who were not actually there. Coming home from school once, Bongbong Marcos and his two sisters were told by their father about an experience the previous night in the President?s Study, which once served as Quezon's bedroom. A household aide walked into his office past midnight, and Marcos ordered him to fetch something. When the aide did not return, Marcos asked the guard where he had gone. Sir, there is no one here, the guard said. Rozon told another version of that story of Marcos wondering why a household aide was still in his study well past midnight. He peered through his glasses to look closely at the aide, who disappeared into the wall, Rozon said. Bongbong Marcos said his sister Imee had also seen Quezon's ghost in one of the state rooms. Undersecretary Manolo Quezon of the Malacañang communications group recalled a story of how his grandfather's ghost paced the Palace during times of crisis. (But ?no one I have met, or heard this story from, ever described him as menacing, or cursing, the grandson said.) He said it was supposedly one of the reasons the Marcoses had the Palace reconstructed in 1979, doubling its original size. Another story from the current staff in the Palace is they sometimes see the lights on late at night in the Quezon Room (now the Executive Office) in Kalayaan Hall, he said. The ghosts may be the lost souls of people slain during World War II, Bongbong Marcos said, adding that the Japanese Army used Malacañang as headquarters and that people were killed in some of the rooms there. Father Brown et al. One person believed killed by Japanese troops was an American priest whose ghost has since haunted the Palace as ?Father Brown? and who, Bongbong Marcos said, was wont to wake dozing Palace guards with a variety of tricks. Then there is a Chinese manservant who has appeared to Palace staff and guests. Bongbong Marcos said a guest from Italy recounted being awakened by a Chinese servant at around 3 a.m. and told to attend Mass with the Marcoses. The first family asked around and was told that the ghost had been known to appear as early as the time of President Manuel Roxas. The ghosts are apparently a mischievous lot. Said Elmer Navarro, whose father Federico, now deceased, was a household aide during the Marcos years: The ghosts played tricks on him. When he put down the plates and turned away, they would be gone when he looked again. Then he would find the plates elsewhere. Barcena said he and his colleagues reported their experiences to their superiors, and were told, with a shrug: Those are house guests. Mr. Brown The most popular of the Palace ?guests? is the benevolent kapre said to inhabit the balete tree that makes President Aquino uncomfortable. Rozon, now 69, said the kapre had been known as Mr. Brown (perhaps confused with Father Brown) since Quezon?s time, but that some staff members also referred to him as Mr. Jones. Mr. Brown was not bad. He didn't harm people, Rozon said. The story goes that household aide Mariano Dacuso, now deceased, was relaxing and reading the papers in the Tea House (where a mosque now stands) when he found himself being lifted along with his chair. He was lifted almost to the ceiling so he told the kapre, Please put me down. Then he ran to us, Rozon said. Then there was a cabbie who got the scare of his life when he asked for a light and looked up to see the kapre chomping on a cigar. Shaking in fear, the cabbie ran to the quarters of the servants, who told him he had found Mr. Brown. Rozon also said that when the social secretary's staff worked overtime typing letters, they would hear someone else typing in the next room, which was empty. Whenever something mysterious happened, it was always blamed on Mr. Brown, he said. Elmer Navarro, who lived in the old servants? quarters as a child, said the kapre was feared even by the military. Sometimes, he recalled, ?you could see smoke wafting from the tree.? Bunye's story Ignacio 'Toting' Bunye, now a member of the Monetary Board, has his own story to tell: From Day One of my assumption as press secretary in 2002, I have been warned about creepy happenings in ... Malacañang. Not being the superstitious type, I readily dismissed such stories. But it is not uncommon to hear about various offices being blessed every now and then, supposedly to ward off any unwanted unearthly visitors. One senior official even had the windows and doors of his office plastered with small medallions of the Blessed Virgin as added insurance. And then it happened! One night after a late dinner at the Ceremonial Hall, I passed by my office to pick up some stuff before going home. It must have been past 9 [p.m.]. My office, at that time, was ... what used to be [Marcos?] bedroom. To reach it from the Ceremonial Hall, one passes through a series of doors and hallways, starting with the Music Room, then through the Ramos Room, another connecting room, and finally the Marcos bedroom. As I walked to my office, I had a funny feeling that somebody or something was following me. I could feel my hair rising and my heart ... [pounding] faster. In the still of the evening, the footsteps on the wooden floor were very audible. As soon as I reached my office, I locked the door behind me (as if it would have mattered). The Thing Bunye said the footsteps slowly but progressively moved closer. He continued: Then I heard the doorknob turn and I felt the slight push on the door. After a while the footsteps started to move away, but seemingly in circles. What I have heard is now happening to me! I quickly said three Our Fathers, three Hail Marys and three Glory Be's. Somehow, I felt emboldened and I decided to leave in a hurry. I told myself: Mr. Ghost, you can scare me but you cannot hurt me! My first view of The Thing from a distance was of a white-haired man wearing a dark suit. The Thing must have sensed my presence because he immediately turned around. He said: Toting, paano ba lumabas dito (How do you get out of here)? Secretary Raul Gonzalez seemed as relieved as I was. The then newly appointed justice secretary had followed me through the secret door and somehow had gotten lost in the Palace labyrinth. The two men later learned it was Gonzalez?s footsteps, and not those of a ghost, that Bunye had heard. Real or imagined, ghosts have the run of Malacañang, making it truly a place not for the faint-hearted.

Sources:
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20101031-300680/Mr-Brown-lives-in-RPs-most-haunted-house-Palace
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacañan_Palace

Nardong Putik

Leonardo Manecio (sometimes credited as "Manicio") aka Nardong Putik was a Filipino gangster turned folk hero. Putik was born in 1923 in Sabang, Dasmariñas, Cavite. His father was a politician of some consequence in his town who was killed by his political enemies. Putik was a driver by profession and at one time saw services as a policeman in Dasmariñas. Putik was married to Feliciana but had many common-law wives. He had one known son, Leonardo, Jr. and two known daughters, Angelita and Estrellita with his legal wife.

An amulet-wielding hoodlum from Cavite province, Putik credited his ability to survive and escape numerous ambushes and gunfights to his anting-anting (amulet). Nardong Putik's ability to elude the law and his enemies made him a legend to many people.

According to Caviteños, Putik got that name as he was known to submerge himself in mud paddies, among carabaos, using bamboo or papaya stalks as breathing tubes, whenever he had to evade a police or military dragnet. But according to some people, he can be invisible once he set foot on the mud using his anting-anting.

His mysterious powers and unexplainable abilities made him a legend, and that's the reason why I put him here.

Story

[Taken from Internet:]

First capture: Putik was first convicted and jailed in 1953 but escaped in July 1955 from the Constabulary stockade in Imus, Cavite where he was held as a detention prisoner. Second capture: Putik was re-captured on May 27, 1958 after he was cornered in a rice mill in barrio Medicion in Kawit, Cavite b He is the 31st PC Company and of the 117th PC Company who were both promoted to Captain and decorated the Gold Cross Medal, the third highest military battle award, for their daring capture. Putik surrendered to Lt. Lazo after engaging the patrol in a 45-minute gun battle. It was a tip from a constabulary informer, received by Col. Manuel Yan, intelligence chief of the Philippine Constabulary, at about 10 o'clock in the evening of May 26, that reported that Nardong Putik was going to spend the night with one of his common-law wives in a rice mill in Kawit, Cavite owned by Lorenzo Rodriguez. The report was immediately relayed to Col. Ricardo Papa, deputy chief of the constabulary. Ruling out a night operation, PC men were deployed by Col. Wilfredo Estrada, provincial commander of Cavite, at about 4:30 a.m. of May 27 with elements of the 117th PC Company led by and forces of the 31st PC Company led by Lt. Elias R. Lazo, Jr. At the break of dawn Lazo and Navarro were instructed to search the mill. The men searched the mill except for the office which was locked. It seemed that Manecio might not be in the mill at all. Nevertheless, the raiders refused to give up and kept their positions. After instructing the PC troops, Lt. Col. Estrada departed with former Cavite Governor Dominador Camerino for Barrio Sabang, Imus, to gather relatives of Manecio to use them to get Manecio to surrender peacefully. At 9 o'clock Estrada and his group have not returned. The troops were getting impatient. For want of anything better to do. Lts. Lazo and Navarro edged closer to the outer window of the locked office in the mill. But from where they were standing, they could only see the far side of the room over the tops of tables and steel cabinets. Lt. Lazo ordered Corporal Esmilla to see if he could from the outside pry open the window on the other side of the room. Esmilla had just inserted his bayonet through the slit to lift the latch when a shot rang out from within, confirming Manecio's presence in the mill. Esmilla hit the dirt, unhurt. Lazo hurried over to where Esmilla was and was himself greeted with another shot from Manecio. The shot also missed its target. Seeing that Manecio was in no mood to give up without a fight, Lazo and Navarro ordered their men to move back. Lazo then ordered one of his men to throw a grenade toward the window. Manecio responded with shots from his pistol. Lazo shouted to Manecio to surrender, "Nardo, mga PC ito. Sumuko ka na at hindi ka maaano!". But instead of a reply, he answered with shots. Lt. Navarro, who was covering Lt. Lazo, fired back with shots. Then Lt. Lazo yelled at Manecio again, this time identifying himself. Manecio acknowledged with "Sir, kayo pala". Manecio said he would yield only to Col. Estrada, ex-Gov. Camerino and Lt. Lazo. As Estrada and Camerino had not yet returned from Sibang, Lazo asked him to throw out whatever weapons he had out the window. This Manecio did. He threw out his pistol, holster, extra magazines for his pistol and a hand grenade which, fortunately, did not explode when it hit the ground. Lt. Lazo then shouted that he and Major Daniel Lantion, executive officer of the constabulary's intelligence division were ready to accept his surrender. But since the door was locked, the door was battered down with a log and Lazo and Navarro rushed into the room with guns ready. The woman was nowhere to be found. Manecio was whisked off to PC headquarters in Imus, Cavite and from there to Camp Crame where he was treated for his minor wounds. For all the shooting exchanges Manecio was only creased on the left forearm, above the right eyebrow and another on the abdomen. Putik credited this to his anting-anting. Putik was sentenced to jail for 182 years and two months at the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa. He escaped in October 1969 and took refuge among the poor farmers of Cavite. Third capture and death: As a fugitive, Putik and his men continued to instill terror in Cavite. Among the cases he was involved in were the illegal cultivation of marijuana and money extortion activities. On February 10, 1971, the National Bureau of Investigation's Narcotics division surveyed a marijuana plantation in Imus, Cavite allegedly being protected by Putik. Two NBI Agents, Rogelio Domingo and Antonio Dayao were captured, tortured, and killed by Nardong Putik and his men.[8] The incident sealed Putik's fate: Angered by the heinous crime, NBI Director Jolly Bugarin ordered all his Agents to capture dead or alive Nardo and all responsible for the death of Agents Domingo and Dayao. NBI Agent Epimaco Velasco was then installed as the new Chief of the NBI Narcotics Division. In a month's time, they were able to record the movements of Nardong Putik. Later, with enough data, they were able to track his full whereabouts confidently to enable them to launch the operation to capture him on October 10, 1971. The operation which was a joint NBI-PC-Imus police force was composed of some 20 men. Troopers from the 233rd PC Company were led by Capt. Manuel Bruan. At 5:00 in the morning, the light of the house of the mistress of Nardo went out. After a few minutes, Nardo drives his Chevrolet Impala car out to the main Manila-Cavite highway. For unknown reasons, or maybe Nardong Putik senses that he is being tailed by the Philippine Constabulary, he was able to escape the PC dragnet or checkpoint at Panamitan and Tabon, Kawit, Cavite. However, Nardong Putik did not notice a Volkswagen Kombi tailing him in the highway at the same time. The Kombi contained NBI Agents Velasco, Nasol, Utico, Bautista and others. They chased Nardo's car, and at Noveleta, Cavite, they were able to overtake the Impala and was at the right side of the car. Velasco shouted "NARDO!". He sensed the danger and immediately reached for his .45 pistol. At that moment, the NBI Agents opened fire with their revolvers, carbines, and submachine guns, peppering the car, and causing Nardo's instant death. The car lurched to the side of the highway and stopped. The Agents then immediately jumped out of their vehicle and took cover. Some Agents were still firing their guns to make sure that Nardo will not retaliate. The Impala was later hauled into NBI Headquarters in Manila, with the dead Putik inside, in full view of Director Bugarin. The news became a flash report on local television, and a top newspaper story the next day. That mission cemented the fame of Agent Velasco, who later became NBI Director in the nineties. The operation was reportedly pushed by Juanito Remulla who was then a Constitutional Convention delegate from Cavite. The killing of Cavite's Public Enemy No. 1 boosted Remulla’s political career having been elected to the provincial board in 1972 then as vice-governor the same year and as Cavite governor from 1979 to 1995. On Nardo's death, some of his men were later arrested, charged and convicted in court for murder and other offenses. [See Philippine Supreme Court Decision no. GR No. L-36613-14 entitled as PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellete, vs. RESTITUTO JIMENEZ, PEDRO NAVAL, MACARIO FRANCISCO, MAMERTO MENDOZA, and MARIO SALAZAR, defendant-appellants. The killing of Putik was met by mixed reactions in Cavite as he had built a reputation as a local "Robin Hood" given that his criminal exploits mainly targeted the rich.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nardong_Putik

White Lady, Black Lady, Red Lady and Brown Lady

I am so curious about the three kinds of lady ghosts - the famous White lady, the mysterious Black Lady, the unknown Red Lady and the infamous Brown Lady. I can't believe that, there are a bunch of lady ghosts with distinguishing color each. What if they haunt in the same place, perhaps, it will be the most colorful, unique and scary place ever?

By the way, there are three kinds of lady ghosts known:

1) The old story of the crying lady, sometimes said to be looking for her lost children, and sometimes warns of impending death. Usually said to head for the town square or a river.

2) The classic lady by the road, sometimes you pass her by repeatedly then disappear, and sometimes they just vanish immediately as you look back. Usually said to disappear by the bridge or a cemetery.

3) The modern hitchhiker lady, sometimes you drop her off at a certain destination of her request, and sometimes she vanishes as you pass by a cemetery. Usually, the driver would later find out that the lady was dead either from people who knew her or from a gravestone.

White Lady

A White Lady is a type of female ghost reportedly seen in rural areas and associated with some local legend of tragedy. White Lady legends are found around the world. Common to many of them is the theme of losing or being betrayed by a husband or fiancé. They are often associated with an individual family line or said to be a harbinger of death similar to a banshee. I considered white ladies as the most famous of them all, because other countries are familiar with this kind of ghost. While the three, they are much unusual to others.

In Philippines, white lady is called as Kaperosa, but most Filipinos named this ghost in English. Kaperosa is a female spirit with no face or a spirit covered in blood which has been reportedly seen in empty buildings, near forests, on roads (especially at night) and on cliffs.

Appearances

In United Kingdom, Old Mill Hotel is said to be haunted by the white lady from long ago. A lady was engaged to a man and was due to be married in the old mill hotel. On their wedding day, the lady's fiance never arrived to the wedding, as he was beaten

up by another man who also wanted the lady. The lady was upset and angry, so she ran to the Nine arches where the trains run past. She sat on the edge crying and forlorn. A train rushed passed her and she jumped in fright, falling to the ground dead. For the rest of her fiance's life, the white lady (the lady who died in her white wedding dress) haunted him for apparently not loving her. Her grave is near the old mill hotel and she is said to be seen sitting under a beautiful tree.

The Castle Huntly, Scotland, is said to be haunted by a young woman dressed in flowing white robes. There are various stories concerning her history, one of which is that she was a daughter of the Lyon family who occupied the castle in the 17th century. When her affair with a manservant was discovered she was banished to a tower on the battlements. Unable to endure her suffering, she threw herself to her death from the tower. The ghost of the White Lady has been seen a number of times over the years, often on the grounds surrounding the castle. She has also been seen in the room in which she was imprisoned.

Muncaster Castle in the county of Cumbria is reputed to be one of England's most haunted houses. The vengeful ghost in white of Mary Bragg, a foul-mouthed local girl who was murdered by being hanged from the Main Gate by drunken youths in the 19th century after they had kidnapped her for a joke, is also referred to as the white lady. The white lady has been sighted in Chadkirk, Manchester going across the canal on a banana boat.

Roughwood Nature Reserve in the Black Country also has had a high number of paranormal incidents, including sightings of a woman in a white dress, drenched in ichor from the lake where it is rumored her body was abandoned. Local myths suggest this is the spirit of Pauline Kelly, who with her daughter Evelyn disappeared in the mid-19th century. The local community has a Halloween tradition involving wearing white dresses and speaking the mocking rhyme: "White Lady, White Lady, I'm the one who killed your baby."

In United States, a local legend tells of the White Lady of Acra, the ghost of a woman who died on her way home from her wedding night in the 19th century. Although no one has come into contact with her, many older people claim to have seen her especially on the abandoned dirt road near the Parchments and Castle Hill which she is rumored to haunt.

Another legend tells of the White Lady jumping off the Portchester Castle while she was carrying a child she didn't want. Her spirit is said to haunt the castle to this day.

In Germany, a white woman was first reported to be seen in the Berliner Schloss in 1625 and sightings have been reported up until 1790.

In the Philippines, the white lady is reportedly seen in Balete Drive of Quezon City and in Loakan Road of Baguio City. Both dwell in trees and haunts at roads, where, other said, they died from an accident or from being raped and was murdered. There are many ghost stories that depict this kind of ghost in the Philippines, with different reasons why they haunt the place, and how they became one.

Black Lady

Should I consider the black lady a banshee too? Actually, I don't know what they are. But I think yes, the only difference between the white and black ladies are the dress they wear as a ghost. They are sometimes associated with devils because they were black. Some says, they are more dangerous than the white lady. How good white ladies are, is equaled by black ladies for being wicked. They appear similar to how the white ladies appear in front of you. Their origin is almost the same as that of the white one. They may be harmful and vengeful. There are only few information or records about this creature.

Appearances

In Lincolnshire, England, the black lady of Bradley Woods is a ghost which reportedly haunts the woods near the village of Bradley. Alleged eyewitnesses have described her as being young and pretty, around 5'6" tall, dressed in a flowing black cloak and a black hood that obscures her hair but reveals her mournful, pale, tear-soaked face. According to the legend she has never harmed anyone and has only ever proved to be a pitiful, if unnerving sight.

The story is known to have been told for many generations. It was once used by parents to frighten children; this appears to have been a common practice among parents in the area, and children were warned that if they were not safely in bed by a certain time "the black lady will get you!".

One theory that has been put forward is that the Black Lady is the ghost of a nun. She appears dressed in black and at nearby Nunsthorpe (now an area of Grimsby) where a convent existed until the Reformation. This theory gives no reason as to why the Black Lady should have moved from Nunsthorpe to Bradley, 2 miles (3.2 km) away. Also, though she may be dressed in black, few if any eyewitnesses have described her appearance as matching that of a nun.

Another possible explanation is that she is a spinster who at one time lived a life of isolation in her cottage in the woods far enough away from the village. If village children had come across a woman living on her own in the woods, who became angry when her privacy and solitude was breached, then imaginary tales of witchcraft could have exaggerated the legend.

Neither of these theories ties in with the folklore.

In Fort Warren, Georges Island, Massachusetts, there was a famous legend about a lady in black. Here's the story: (by Edward Rowe Snow)

... During the War between the States, hundreds of prisoners were captured by General Burnside at Roanoke Island. Among the group incarcerated at Fort Warren in the Corridor of Dungeons was a young lieutenant who had been married only a few weeks before. He succeeded in getting a message to his young wife by the underground railroad, giving complete directions as to where he was and how she could reach him. Being very much in love, she obtained passage on a small sloop, and landed in Hull a few weeks later. She quickly located the home of a Southerner in that town and was fitted out with a pistol and dressed in men's clothing. Choosing a dark, rainy night, the lady rowed across Nantasket Road and finally landed on the beach at Georges Island. Slipping noiselessly by the sentries, she reached the ditch under the Corridor of Dungeons. After giving a prearranged signal, she was hoisted up to the carronade embrasure and pulled through the opening. As soon as husband and wife had exchanged greetings, they made plans for the future. The prisoners decided to dig their way out of the dungeon into the parade ground and set to work. Unfortunately for their plans, a slight miscalculation brought their tunnel with hearing of Northern soldiers stationed on the other side of the wall.

The commanding officer, Colonel Dimick, was notified and the whole scheme was quickly exposed. The brave little woman, when cornered, attempted to fire at the Colonel, but the gun was of the old-fashioned pepper box type and exploded, killing her husband. Colonel Dimick had no alternative but to sentence her to hang as a spy. She made one last request: that she be hanged in women's clothing. After a search of the fort, some robes were found which had been worn by one of the soldiers during an entertainment, and the plucky girl went to her death wearing these robes. At various times through the years, the Ghost of the Lady in Black has returned to haunt the men quartered at the fort.

Once, three soldiers were walking under the great arched sallyport at the entrance to the fort, and there before them, in the fresh snow, were five impressions of a girl's shoe leading nowhere and coming from nowhere. Ten years before World War II, a certain sergeant from Fort Banks was climbing to the top of the ladder which leads to the Corridor of Dungeons when he heard a voice warning him, saying: "Don't come in here!" Needless to say, he did not venture further.

There actually are on record court-martial cases of men who have shot at ghost-like figures while on sentry duty, and one poor man deserted his post, claiming he had been chased by the lady of the black robes. For many years the traditional poker game was enjoyed in the old ordnance storeroom, and at ten o'clock one night a stone was rolled the entire length of the storeroom. As all the men on the island were playing poker, no explanation could be found. When the same thing happened the next time that the men played poker in the evening, the group at the card table decreased appreciably.

By the end of the month the ordnance storeroom was deserted, and since that time, if any of the enlisted men wished to indulge in that pastime, they chose another part of the island. The ghost of the "Lady in Black" was, of course, blamed for the trouble.

In the Philippines, there was this news about a 10-year-old child who saw a black lady. Here is the whole story: (by Ria Mae Y. Booc/FPL)

Black ghost hounds pupil in Dalaguete?
CEBU, Philippines - The appearance of a “black lady” to a 10-year-old pupil in the middle of her discussion prompted grade four teacher Zita Hayo of Dalaguete Elementary School to suspend her class yesterday.

The pupils in the grade four class were terrified when one of their female classmates suddenly burst into tears because of fear. The pupil told her teacher that she is seeing a “black lady” in the classroom. She described it having black eyes with blood dripping from her mouth.

Hayo said she first noticed the unusual behavior of the pupil last Monday. According to her, she was having her class discussion in the morning when the pupil suddenly cried without any reason.

When she asked the child what was wrong the latter told her that a “black lady” appeared before her. Hayo referred the incident to their principal, Cecelia Cartilla.

They referred the child to healing minister Vioh Amamampang who performed a prayer over on the child. They also called the child’s parents who brought her to the district hospital. Upon examination, the doctors found her negative of any disease.

However, the same incident occurred yesterday morning prompting the principal to investigate the child. She said the pupil is not insane, in fact, she was doing well in her class.

Cartilla said the pupil told her that the “black lady” first appeared in her dreams and introduced herself as Nunita Cabal.

Cabal allegedly told the child that she died long ago and that she needs prayers. The “black lady” asked the child to offer prayers for her because she has no families to pray for her.

The pupil was allegedly instructed to offer five masses for her within five Sundays.

Upon hearing the child’s story, Cartilla said she immediately asked her staff to offer a prayer for the soul of Cabal. However, the pupil screamed and went wild because she is allegedly seeing different faces telling her that Cabal is not worthy of prayers.

This prompted Cartilla to send the pupil to Santo Rosario Parish in Cebu City for spiritual healing. – (FREEMAN)

Red Lady

Like other two ladies above, this ghost is wearing a robe or a gown in red from where she got her name as Red Lady. In stories I had read, the author said that this ghost is the most dangerous of the three, dangerous than the Black lady. It can give you goosebumps more that what you feel to black ladies. They said, red ladies died because of sexual abuses.

Appearances

There was a real ghost story that tells about a lady in red in University of Santo Thomas in the Philippines. According to the story, the lady in red was published in a news

paper of the said university for their All-Saint's-Day edition. The ghost haunts in the main campus, which was the oldest building, in the comfort room. The shocking thing about her is, she wears high heels. They would hear the rhythmic tock-tocking of her high-heeled shoes in the hallway, but mostly in the lady's powder room.

(by Triglyceride on PEX)

... the story goes there was this student who went in there and as she was relieving herself she heard someone walk in the restroom...tok tok tok tok the sound was unmistakable ...high heeled shoes....so there she was relieving herself when all of a sudden someone started pounding on the door of her bathroom stall. The door doesn't go all the way to the floor so you know...you could see the feet of whoever's in front of the door..well she got annoyed at how rude this person was so she said sandali lang! at the same time her eyes automatically drifted down at the bottom of the floor.....

she didn't see any pair of feet....and yet the pounding continued...

she looked above the door and that was the time she saw the lady in red angrily looking down at her...

In Montgomery, Alabama, there was this Red Lady in Huntingdon College. It is a ghost said to haunt the former Pratt Hall dormitory at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama. Her story is told in Huntingdon alumnus Kathryn Tucker Windham's book 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey.

According to Windham and historian Daniel Barefoot, there have actually been two ghosts alleged to have haunted Huntingdon College. The first appeared in the late nineteenth century, while the college was still located in the town of Tuskegee, Alabama. She was described as a young woman wearing a scarlet dress and carrying a scarlet parasol who walked wordlessly up and down the halls of a women's dormitory late one night, bathed in a red glow. This apparition, according to Windham, ultimately left the residence hall and disappeared from view as she passed through a gateway outside. The alleged identity or origin of this wraith has never been determined, and she was apparently never seen again. [Click Here for other information]

Brown Lady

Another kind of colored ghost. Maybe the brown lady is the rarest of the four. I don't know about this creature, I had just stumbled upon this. Actually, I only know three colored lady ghost, not four. I can't believe that there's another one.

Appearances

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall is a ghost which reportedly haunts Raynham Hall in Norfolk. It became one of the most famous hauntings in Great Britain when the image of the 'Brown Lady' was captured by photographers from Country Life magazine who were photographing the staircase in 1936, where it would become one of the most famous paranormal photographs of all time. The "Brown Lady" is so named because of the brown brocade dress it is claimed she wears.

This black-and-white picture depicted here (left) is thought to be that of Lady Dorothy Townshend, wife of Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount of Raynham, residents of Raynham Hall in Norfolk, England in the early 1700s.

According to legend, the "Brown Lady of Raynham Hall" is the ghost of Lady Dorothy Walpole (1686-1726), the sister of Robert Walpole, generally regarded as the first Prime Minister of Great Britain. She was the second wife of Charles Townshend, who was notorious for his violent temper. The story says that when Townshend discovered that his wife had committed adultery with Lord Wharton he punished her by locking her in her rooms in the family home, Raynham Hall. According to Mary Wortley Montagu, Dorothy was in fact entrapped by the Countess of Wharton. She invited Dorothy over to stay for a few days knowing that her husband would never allow her to leave it, not even to see her children. She remained at Raynham Hall until her death in 1726 from smallpox. [Click Here for more about this.]

Philippines

Questions of Filipinos:

Where did the belief of Filipinos for White Ladies (and also the other colors) originated?

So here's the answer:

Long time ago, before the time of Spanish colonialism, ancient Filipinos believe that every living and non-living things possess Kaluluwa (Soul) - Animism. These beings are actually called Diwata. They were usually depicted wearing white clothes and live within every trees, plants, etc. Filipinos believe, at that time, that they were gentle and helpful to people, but as time pass by, it changed. Suddenly, this creatures became white ladies by the influence of Americans.

Aside of that, the colors that vary from one lady to another symbolizes what their attitude is. Filipinos believe that, white symbolizes good and kind and black were wicked.

Others:

Aside of the four ladies above, there are more:

The Blue Lady is the ghost of a woman reportedly seen in and around the Moss Beach Distillery Cafe in Moss Beach, California; she is so-named because she usually dressed all in blue. She is said to originate from the Prohibition era.[1]

The Pink Lady is the unknown woman who visit the Grove Park Inn in Ashevile during the 1920's, and was a guest of room 545. Dressed in a long, pink, flowing gown, the woman fell to her death over the stone wall from the second floor. Though her body was removed, it seems that her spirit has lingered behind.[2]

The Gray Ladies are the ghosts of women who died violently for the sake of love or through the heartless actions of a family member. They are tragic figures and many ghosts fit this description. They are the lonely women ghosts who wandering the world, lost. There are grey lady stories throughout the world and they are as prolific as any ghost story, but my favorite Gray lady is a girl named Kate.[3]

The Green Lady of Caerphilly Castle. Old local legends suggested that the green lady was a very abnormal looking old crooked hag character. In fact The Green Lady was a french lady called Alice who apparently died after her lover was executed. She was basicalled having an affair, She was married to the dude living in the castle at the time and she went to confess her sins to a local monk who told the dude she was married to who owned the castle, he had the lover killed the monk killed and alice died of a broken heart. She is very occasionally seen by many people, Also the castle famous leaning tower smells of lavendar perfurme now and again but no wild lavendar grows in the area. [4]

That's all the color I found in Internet. Most of them died because of love, from unfinished wedding to deserted by a partner. Thus, being heart-broken, there arise a ghost. In addition to that, all the given ladies above, except the Gray (grey) Ladies, were so-called because of the color of gown, robe or any kind of dress they wear when they died or how they appear to human as their color.

I also wanted to research male ghosts in colors. Do you think I can find one?

If you know another colored lady or gentleman ghost, e-mail me at philurbanlegends@ymail.com or message me at http://www.facebook.com/PhilippineUrbanLegends for full data and story about them.

Visit also this site:

[1] http://seeker7.hubpages.com/hub/The-Colour-of-Ghosts

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ghosts

[3] https://sites.google.com/site/paranormalirgsite/home/paranormal-dictionary/j---k---l

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Lady_(ghost)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lady_of_Bradley_Woods
http://home.comcast.net/~jay.schmidt/ft.warren/ghost.html
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=660132&publicationSubCategoryId=107
http://pinoy-horror-stories.blogspot.com/2011/06/red-lady-on-ust.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lady_of_Huntingdon_College
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Lady_of_Raynham_Hall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Lady_(ghost)
http://hauntedstories.net/haunted-house/north-carolina/ghost-pink-lady
http://ghoststoriesandhauntedplaces.blogspot.com/2010/04/gray-lady.html
http://great-castles.com/caerphillyghost.php
http://www.worldofghosts.co.uk/about1928.html&sid=cb23cb79f4f8a72f19ba12cdb7bc44ac
https://sites.google.com/site/paranormalirgsite/home/paranormal-dictionary/j---k---l
[Picture from:]

http://www.strangehistory.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/white-woman-ghosts.jpg

http://calling.wikia.com/wiki/Girl_in_Red

http://theresashauntedhistoryofthetri-state.blogspot.com/2011/01/guyandottes-lady-in-black.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brown_lady.jpg

Agapito Flores

Story

[Taken from a Book:]

Agapito Flores: Filipino Inventor by Nila B. Cay Edison died leaving the electric bulb, among other things, to light the world. But the light was a warm yellow glow and to produce a white light, a consumer had to buy a high-watt bulb and use more electricity. This set a poor man from Tondo thinking. He thought of devising another bulb that could produce a bright light that was easy on the eyes and on the pocket. He brought a tube-like bulb to show his president. President Manuel L. Quezon listened to him and examined his invention. The man plugged it on, and it radiated a blush-white light that was cool to the eyes but as bright as day. President Quezon was impressed and more was his guest who an official from the French government. He had been observing the demonstration all along. He sent the electrician to Paris where he was given a patent. Nobody could imitate his invention without the Filipino inventor's permission. The General Electric company in the United States heard of this. It lost no time buying the poor man's invention. It reproduced the bulb in millions and sold them all over the world. This is the popular fluorescent bulb which gives off a bright light with minimum electric consumption. That man was Agapito Flores, the thrifty, industrious, inventive man from Tondo who knew what he wanted and, undeterred, got it. --- Reading Journey 5

About

First, let's talk about the life of Agapito Flores:

Agapito Flores was born in Guiguinto, Bulacan, Philippines on September 28, 1897. Because of poverty, he did not finish his high school. He worked as an apprentice in a machine shop, and later moved to Tondo, Manila. He took an Electric Course from a vocational school. After a couple of months, he applied for a job.

He conducted experiments about light and its common uses, typically at night. He wanted to discover a type of light that shines like the sun.

It has been reported that Agapito Flores received a French patent for a fluorescent bulb and that the General Electric Company bought Flores' patent rights and manufactured and sold his fluorescent bulb (making millions from it).

Agapito Flores died on 1943.

The above story is real - it did happened, but the main case why I enlisted him here is the story that he invented the fluorescent light which is not true. Below are the more predate inventors of the fluorescent light.

In 1857, the French physicist Alexandre E. Becquerel who had investigated the phenomena of fluorescence and phosphorescence, theorized about the building of fluorescent tubes similar to those made today.

American, Peter Cooper Hewitt (1861-1921) patented (U.S. patent 889,692) the first mercury vapor lamp in 1901. The low pressure mercury arc lamp of Peter Cooper Hewitt is the very first prototype of today's modern fluorescent lights.

Edmund Germer (1901 - 1987) who invented a high pressure vapor lamp, also invented an improved fluorescent lamp. In 1927, Edmund Germer co-patented an experimental fluorescent lamp with Friedrich Meyer and Hans Spanner.

Source:
Lilia B. Fontanilla. Values Education Living a Valuable Life. St. Augustine Publication, Inc. 2005
http://www.scribd.com/doc/45201549/Agapito-Flores
http://inventors.about.com/od/filipinoscientists/a/Agapito_Flores.htm

Gil Pérez

Teleportation is the transfer of matter from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. Many people would wish to have such power just to visit every place in the world transporting in just a blink of an eye. Even I would like to have it! Well, for Filipinos, did you know that there was one story about a man who suddenly vanished in one place then appeared kilometers away from where he disappeared. His name is Gil Perez.

Story

[Taken from Internet:]

Gil Pérez was a Spanish soldier of the Filipino Guardia Civil who allegedly suddenly appeared in the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City (more than 9,000 nautical miles from Manila, across the Pacific) on October 24, 1593. He was wearing the uniform of the guards of Palacio Del Gobernador (Malacañan Palace now) in the Philippines, and claimed he had no idea how he had arrived in Mexico. Perez claimed that moments before finding himself in Mexico he had been on sentry duty in Manila at the governor’s palace. He admitted that while he was aware that he was no longer in the Philippines, he had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there. He said that moments before he arrived there, His Excellency the Governor of the Philippines, Gomez Perez Dasmariñas had been killed by Chinese pirates. He explained that after long hours of duty in Manila, he felt faint, leaned against a wall and closed his eyes; he said he opened her eyes a second later to find himself somewhere different. When it was explained to him that he was now in Mexico City, Perez refused to believe it saying that he had received his orders on the morning of October 23 in Manila and that it was therefore impossible for him to be in Mexico City on the evening of the 24th. The authorities placed Perez in jail as a deserter and for the possibility that he may have been in the service of Satan. The Most Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition questioned the soldier, but all he could say in his defense was that he had travelled from Manila to Mexico “in less time than it takes a cock to crow”. Two months later, news from the Philippines arrived by Manila Galleon, confirming the fact of the literal axing on October 23 of Dasmariñas in a mutiny of Chinese rowers, as well as other points of the mysterious soldier’s fantastic story. Witnesses confirmed that Gil Perez had indeed been on duty in Manila just before arriving in Mexico. Furthermore, one of the passengers on the ship recognized Perez and swore that he had seen him in the Philippines on October 23. Gil Perez eventually returned to the Philippines and took up his former position as a palace guard, living thenceforth an apparently uneventful life.

So, what's the connection of his story to urban legend? Well, this story is considered inaccurate or doubtful because the story appeared in writing a century after the said time when the event happened. Maybe, it was written just for fun. (Like the story of the cursed Spanish lady) There's also no records found concerning his imprisonment or interrogation, thus there is no way this thing be real.

Sources:
http://cogitz.com/2009/09/09/the-mysterious-case-of-gil-perez/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleportation
[Picture from:]http://billanu.tumblr.com/post/2705750022/the-mysterious-case-of-gil-perez

Code of Kalantiaw

This is actually not an urban legend. This is a hoax, just like The Coming of Borneans to Panay I had posted here.

Info

The Code of Kalantiaw was a legendary legal code in the epic story Maragtas. It is said to have been written in 1433 by Datu Kalantiaw, a chief on the island of Negros in the Philippines. It was actually written in 1913 by Jose E. Marco as a part of his historical fiction Las antiguas leyendas de la Isla de Negros (Spanish, "The Ancient Legends of the Island of Negros"), which he attributed to a priest named Jose Maria Pavon.

In 1917, the historian Josué Soncuya wrote about the Code of Kalantiaw in his book Historia Prehispana de Filipinas ("Prehispanic History of the Philippines") where he moved the location of the Code's origin from Negros to the Panay province of Aklan because he suspected that it may be related to the Ati-atihan festival. Other authors throughout the 20th century gave credence to the story and the code.

In 1965, then University of Santo Tomas doctoral candidate William Henry Scott began an examination of prehispanic sources for the study of Philippine history. Scott eventually demonstrated that the code was a forgery committed by Marco. When Scott presented these conclusions in his doctoral dissertation, defended on 16 June 1968 before a panel of eminent Filipino historians which included Teodoro Agoncillo, Horacio de la Costa, Marcelino Foronda, Meceredes Grau Santamaria, Nicolas Zafra and Gregorio Zaide, not a single question was raised about the chapter which he had called The Contributions of Jose E. Marco to Philippine historiography. Scott later published his findings debunking the code in his book Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History. Filipino historians later removed the code from future literature regarding Philippine history. When Antonio W. Molina published a Spanish version of his The Philippines Through the Centuries as historia de Filipinas (Madrid, 1984), he replaced the Code with one sentence: "La tésis doctoral del historador Scott desbarate la existencia misma de dicho Código" (The doctoral dissertation of the historian Scott demolishes the very existence of the Code).

Philippine historian Teodoro Agoncillo describes the Code as "a disputed document". Some history texts continue to present it as historical fact. Struggle for Freedom (subtitled A textbook on Philippine History) says, "Reproduced herein is the entire Code of Kalantiaw for your critical examination and for you to decide on its veracity and accuracy."

The story is still believed by people in the central provinces. Some maintain the opinion that this is due to mis-education. But taking into consideration that after the Spanish colonization, local literary achievements in culture and government in the former territories of the Confederation of Madya-as were eclipsed by the emphasis of the Spanish colonial regime on Catholic Christian faith, and the fact that Ilonggo litearary heritage was primarily orally passed from one generation to another, as in the case of the oldest and longest epic in Hiligaynon Hinilawod that survive in the Sulod society in the hinterlands of Panay, the local beliefs inherited by the Ilonggos from their ancestors cannot be just be hastily dismissed as fabricated. In fact, Maragtas and the Code of Kalantiaw are something that serious historians have to study more carefully. What Walter Scott failed to consider in his jusgement is the nature of the transmission of Ilonggo local literature. He just limited himself with evaluating a relatively recent attempt to into writing what Ilonggos have bequeathed to their descendants through generations by means of oral tradition.

Laws of the Code of Kalantiaw:

[Taken from Internet:]

Article I You shall not kill, neither shall you steal, neither shall you do harm to the aged, lest you incur the danger of death. All those who infringe this order shall be condemned to death by being drowned in the river, or in boiling water. Article II You shall obey. Let all your debts with the headman be met punctually. He who does not obey shall receive for the first time one hundred lashes. If the debt is large, he shall be condemned to thrust his hand in boiling water thrice. For the second time, he shall be beaten to death. Article III Obey you: let no one have women that are very young nor more than he can support; nor be given to excessive lust. He who does not comply with, obey, and observe this order shall be condemned to swim for three hours for the first time and for the second time, to be beaten to death with sharp thorns. Article IV Observe and obey; let no one disturb the quiet of the graves. When passing by the caves and trees where they are, give respect to them. He who does not observe this shall be killed by ants, or beaten to death with thorns. Article V You shall obey; he who exchanges for food, let it be always done in accordance with his word. He who does not comply, shall be beaten for one hour, he who repeats the offense shall be exposed for one day among ants. Article VI You shall be obliged to revere sights that are held in respect, such as those of trees of recognized worth and other sights. He who fails to comply shall pay with one month's work in gold or in honey. Article VII These shall be put to death; he who kills trees of venerable appearance; who shoot arrows at night at old men and women; he who enters the houses of the headmen without permission; he who kills a shark or a streaked cayman. Article VIII Slavery for a doam (a certain period of time) shall be suffered by those who steal away the women of the headmen; by him who keep ill-tempered dogs that bite the headmen; by him who burns the fields of another. Article IX All these shall be beaten for two days: who sing while traveling by night; kill the Manaul; tear the documents belonging to the headmen; are malicious liars; or who mock the dead. Article X It is decreed an obligation; that every mother teach secretly to her daughters matters pertaining to lust and prepare them for womanhood; let not men be cruel nor punish their women when they catch them in the act of adultery. Whoever shall disobey shall be killed by being cut to pieces and thrown to the caymans. Article XI These shall be burned: who by their strength or cunning have mocked at and escaped punishment or who have killed young boys; or try to steal away the women of the elders. Article XII These shall be drowned: all who interfere with their superiors, or their owners or masters; all those who abuse themselves through their lust; those who destroy their anitos (religious icons) by breaking them or throwing them down. Article XIII All these shall be exposed to ants for half a day: who kill black cats during a new moon; or steal anything from the chiefs or agorangs, however small the object may be. Article XIV These shall be made slave for life: who have beautiful daughters and deny them to the sons of chiefs, and with bad faith hide them away. Article XV Concerning beliefs and traditions; these shall be beaten: who eat the diseased flesh of beasts which they hold in respect, or the herb which they consider good, who wound or kill the young of the Manaul, or the white monkey. Article XVI The fingers shall be cut-off: of all those who break anitos of wood and clay in their alangans and temples; of those who destroy the daggers of the catalonans(priest/priestess), or break the drinking jars of the latter. Article XVII These shall be killed: who profane sites where anitos are kept, and sites where are buried the sacred things of their diwatas and headmen. He who performs his necessities in those places shall be burned. Article XVIII Those who do not cause these rules to be obeyed: if they are headmen, they shall be put to death by being stoned and crushed; and if they are agorangs they shall be placed in rivers to be eaten by sharks and caymans.

Kalantiaw The Hoax

The story of Datu Kalantiaw is often mistaken to be part of the epic of ten intrepid chiefs who founded Visayan civilization as much as 800 years ago, as told in an ancient and mysterious document called the Maragtas. This document, however, was an ordinary book written in 1907 by Pedro Monteclaro in which he compiled the local legends of the Visayas from mainly oral traditions and a few written documents that were fairly modern in their origins. Monteclaro never mentioned a chief by the name of Kalantiaw in his Maragtas. (See: The Maragtas Legend.)

Some of the Maragtas legends are a part of Visayan folklore and they are a source of fierce pride for many Visayans today. The stories of the ten datus or chiefs might have been told for generations and they are perfectly believable, as far as legends go, if we put aside the modern additions such as obviously phoney "original" manuscripts and the use of precise but utterly uncorroborated dates from the pre-colonial era.

After all, it is not hard to believe that exiles could have sailed from Borneo to settle in Panay. Why not? Even though there are no ancient documents to show that Chief Sumakwel and his followers actually existed, there is much archaeological and foreign documentary evidence of regular trade and travel at that time between the Philippines and its neighbours.

But while Monteclaro's misguided nationalism, combined with the blatant dishonesty of other writers who embellished his work, blurred the line between legends and hard historical facts, the story of Kalantiaw is more alarming because he was never a part of the Philippines' history or even its oral traditions. Kalantiaw was an utter hoax from the beginning.

We should not believe on it

So, why should we not believe this story that has been taught as history for so many years in Filipino schools?

There are three good reasons:

1. The first reason is the lack of historical evidence. There are simply no written or pictorial documents from that time in Philippine history. There are no documents from other countries that mention the great Kalantiaw either. There is also no evidence that Philippine culture ever spawned such a barbaric set of laws. The early Spanish accounts tell us that Filipino custom at that time allowed even the most serious lawbreakers to pay a fine or to be placed into servitude for a time in cases of debt. As the missionary Francisco Colín wrote in 1663:
In the punishment of crimes of violence the social rank of the slayer and slain made a great deal of difference. If the slain was a chief, all his kinsfolk took the warpath against the slayer and his kinfolk, and this state of war continued until arbiters were able to determine the amount of gold which had to be paid for the killing… The death penalty was not imposed by public authority save in cases where both the slayer and slain were commoners, and the slayer could not pay the blood price. K1
Arbitration is still the custom of those Philippine cultures that were never conquered by the Spaniards.

2. The second reason is the lack of evidence for Kalantiaw even as a legend of oral history. Many ardent admirers of the Datu, who disdain all historical evidence to the contrary, claim that he has long been a part of Visayan culture and heritage. This is simply not true. In almost 400 years of documented Philippine history – from Magellan's arrival in 1521 until the second decade of the 20th century – no such legend was ever recorded. Kalantiaw even escaped the attention of Pedro Monteclaro when he published the Maragtas legends in 1907. This is very suspicious considering that there are more stories today about Kalantiaw than there are about any of the ten datus of the Maragtas.

Did the Spaniards suppress the legend of Kalantiaw?

This accusation is usually the first thing that history buffs reach for when they need to explain a gap in Philippine history. If the Spaniards were aware of such a legend they had no reason to suppress it because those Spaniards who were sympathetic to the Filipinos could have presented the mere existence of the Code as proof that their ancestors were civilized – just as many Filipinos do today – while detractors could have pointed to the maniacal Datu himself as proof of their savagery – even though his methods of torture were no more sadistic than those of the Spanish Inquisition.
It is certain that there were no legends of Kalantiaw before the 20th century. The Aklanon historian Digno Alba was a young man at the start of that century. He looked for Kalantiaw in local folklore in the 1950s but did not find him.

On May 5, 1967 the historian William H. Scott wrote to Alba and asked him:

When you were a child, Don Digno, did not the old folks of Aklan have stories about Kalantiaw even before the discovery of the Pavón documents in 1913? Were there no popular legends or folklore that the elders told their grandchildren?

To which Alba replied in a letter from Kalibo, Aklan dated May 15, 1967:
I had tried to get stories or legends from the present generations of Aklanons living in Batan… but not one old man can tell me now.

3. The third and most important reason to reject the Kalantiaw myth is its source. If Kalantiaw was not a historical figure or a legendary character, where did he come from? Many writers on this subject didn't bother to mention where they obtained their information. Some, like Digno Alba, simply created "facts" from thin air. Scott eventually traced the ultimate origin of Kalantiaw back to a single person, José E. Marco of Pontevedra, Negros Occidental, who definitely did not live in the 1400s. In 1913, Marco claimed to have discovered the Pavón documents that were mentioned in Scott's letter to Digno Alba. These documents, which contain the Code of Kalantiaw, were in fact Marco's own creation. Kalantiaw eventually became the most successful of many hoaxes in Marco's career of almost 50 years as a forger and fraud. (For more about the life of Jose Marco see Jose Marco: Con man of the century)

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Kalantiaw
http://www.mts.net/~pmorrow/kalant_e.htm