Conversations with a Sorcerer

Witchcraft and sorcery are alive and well here in the island of Siquijor, Philippines. This mystical island is considered the navel of sorcery and magic in the Philippines, and there are indeed people who practice sorcery and witchcraft here. In particular, I was constantly hearing about this powerful sorcerer who lives in one of the remote villages of Siquijor. I have met many people in Siquijor, and the name that is invariably mentioned whenever sorcery is being discussed is Mr. Alberto ‘Manong Edol’ Baroro.

I decided to meet Manong Edol and perhaps interview him and photograph his work. Incidentally, my habal-habal driver Johnson frequently transported clients to Manong Edol’s house. When I told Johnson my intention to meet Manong Edol, he arranged a late afternoon meeting between me and the Siquijor sorcerer.

It was a rainy late afternoon last April 1 when I met Manong Edol. He lives in the little uphill village of Cang-Atuyom, on the slopes of the mystical Mount Bandilaan in the town of San Antonio, Siquijor. Mount Bandilaan is the highest point and dead center of Siquijor island.

The house where Manong Edol lived was accessible only through a narrow dirt path from the rough main road. The dirt path was an alternating upward and downward slope that, when it rained like it did that day, became very slippery. After struggling for several minutes of rough climbing and descending, we finally spotted the house of Manong Edol. The house was made of wood and concrete, surrounded by huge trees.

In front of Manong Edol’s house was a garden planted to various kinds of shrubs and herbs. I noticed that the house was isolated. The nearest neighbor was the one we passed by earlier, some two kilometers away.

A kindly looking man in his early 60s, Manong Edol did not fit into the stereotype-image of a sorcerer. He was a warm and friendly person, although serious in demeanor. He had a prominent forehead and streaks of gray hair. He welcomed me and my habal-habal driver Johnson into his house, a modest place which, aside from a few chairs and a small table, was devoid of furnishing. On one of the walls was a huge calendar with the red dates of the moon phases. On the other wall was an altar with religious statues and images.

Since Manong Edol spoke neither Tagalog nor English, Johnson became our interpreter. I began by telling him I wanted to interview him on the three forms of sorcery -- kulam, gaway, and barang. At first, he wanted to decline – lest I might misinterpret some of what he would say because we didn’t speak the same dialect.

When I told him I would record the conversations on video, as well as in writing, and that consequently I would be able to verify Johnson’s interpretations against those of other Visayan folks who would subsequently view the video record, he assented.

While he agreed to be interviewed immediately, he said I would have to wait for the night to document his work, as he performs witchcraft only after sundown. In the meantime, I set up my video camera and began to ask questions.

“How do you call your form of sorcery?” I began

“There are three procedures that I can perform,” Manong Edol said, “paktol, barang, and gaway. The paktol is a curse I put on a person I want to suffer or die. The barang, on the other hand, involves my ability to command insects to hurt a person. The gaway involves a rag or waxen doll which I pierce in the part where I want the hex victim to suffer”.

I have been hearing about paktol, barang, and gaway for years. A sorcerer who uses the paktol, barang, or gaway is known as a mangkukulam, mambabarang, or manggaway, respectively. Manong Edol is all three, although he prefers using paktol than the other two.

Barang and Gaway

The barang* is a powerful procedure that involves keeping an army of insects. The insects are kept inside a bottle or a bamboo tube and are trained to hurt a guilty person. A piece of paper with the name of the person to be hexed is tied with a string to the neck of the insect. It is then commanded to lodge itself into any of the body openings of the victim. The insect wreaks havoc inside the body that results in death.

According to Manong Edol, he no longer performs barang because of the difficulty of "disciplining" the insects.

"These little creatures can be very unruly," he said, "so I no longer use them. Besides, they cannot hurt someone who has already fled to another island. The insects cannot travel across the sea. Barang is a very old and outdated procedure, and I doubt if there are any more mambabarang in Siquijor. Otherwise I would have already felt their powers."

Manong Edol is right. By now, the barang is a lost craft. The barang was described by a Spanish chronicler as early as the 16th century. In 1578, a Spanish traveler named Diego Lope Povedano wrote: "They( the Visayans) have another way of killing their enemies who do them harm. In a bamboo tube, they put some insects similar to house flies, but with hard skins. They call these barang…”

The gaway, on the other hand, involves making a rag or waxen doll in the likeness of the person to be cursed. The sorcerer sticks a needle into the part where he wants his victim to suffer; if he sticks a needle in the stomach, the victim will suffer a terrible stomachache, and so on. Sometimes needles are not necessary; simply applying force to the part of the doll is enough. Nevertheless, Manong Edol avoids doing gaway because he wants to concentrate his powers on the paktol.

Paktol: The most powerful spell

According to Manong Edol, the paktol is the most powerful procedure and those cursed by it would definitely suffer unless they repent and ask for forgiveness. The paktol involves many procedures. The most basic is getting an object from the prospective victim, such as a strand of hair or a photograph. Tools used differ, too, among sorcerers. In the case of Manong Edol, he uses human skulls.

“But let me tell you,” he asserted, “that I do not perform sorcery simply because I want to hurt or kill someone. I use the curse only if there has been a grave injustice committed. The paktol will not hurt someone who is innocent."

Fascinated with this mysterious man, I asked how he began his career as sorcerer.

The Beginnings of a Sorcerer

Born in 1946, Manong Edol is, from what I gathered from the locals I interviewed, one of the three highest ranking sorcerers in the island (the two others being Juan Ponce and Vicente Tamala). I further learned that in the hierarchy of sorcerers, the higher-ranked can subjugate those who are below him. This means he can diffuse the hex or spell of the lesser sorcerers and even submit the lower ones to his will.

Manong Edol confided that a sorcerer is a very gifted person. He has powers passed on to him by unseen supernatural beings that live in this world. But even then, this gifted person needs someone, a more powerful and usually older and more experienced sorcerer, to train him, so that he can fully harness his gifts.

Manong Edol learned the craft from Emid Balasi, an 85-year-old witch from Lazi, who used to frequent his farm to gather herbs. As a friendship grew between them, the woman became convinced that young Edol had latent gifts that could be developed. When the old woman died in 1968, she passed on to Manong Edol her secret prayers and procedures in witchcraft. From then on, Manong Edol engaged in witchcraft and sorcery.

Inheriting the Powers of Boscia Bulongon

If he had latent gifts, he must have inherited these from his grandmother, the late Boscia Bulongon, possibly Siquijor’s most famous sorcerer of her time.

In the 1970s, Bulongon gained notoriety when she was consulted by then First Lady Imelda Marcos – who grew up in Leyte where the belief in kulam was also quite prevalent – sent for her. It seems that Mrs, Marcos developed severe lesions on her legs that resembled reptile scales. As the story goes, Lola Boscia was fetched from Siquijor island by helicopter and brought to Malacanang Palace.

Lola Boscia confirmed that Mrs. Marcos was indeed a victim of kulam, and assured her she could diffuse the power of the curse, being a more powerful sorcerer than the one that hexed the former First Lady.

When she was healed, Mrs. Marcos reportedly paid Lola Boscia a huge sum of money for her services and asked her to stay in the Palace to be her confidante and adviser. After the Marcoses fled the country, she returned to Siquijor.

Rumor has it that Lola Boscia hid bundles of cash in her house and grew so miserly she would not share a centavo with her relatives. She also became mean in her old age, refusing to pay tricycle fare, knowing all the drivers were afraid to charge her. In the end, one of her grandsons beat her to death with a piece of wood, as witches are supposed to be impervious to metal weapons. However, to this day, they failed to find the treasure she was supposed to have hidden.

Lola Boscia’s story, the biggest of that time, reinforced the belief among outsiders that Siquijor is indeed a sorcerer’s island.

Manong Edol claimed he felt that his grandmother‘s power passed on to him after her death. However, he never inherited any material wealth from her.

* * *

While we were deep in conversation, I almost forgot the passing of time. I took a glance at my watch and found that it was about six in the evening. Outside, the fading sun had begun to cast deep shadows. Soon it became dark, and since they did not have electricity, Manong Edol lit an oil lamp. We continued conversing, but I had to stop the video camera from recording as the oil lamp did not provide sufficient lighting.

Arrival of clients

Meanwhile, two people appeared at the door: a young woman in her twenties and an older lady who looked like her mother. Manong Edol welcomed the guests, bade them to come inside, and introduced them to me.

The young lady and her mother live in Dumaguete and came to Siquijor to seek Manong Edol’s help. The young woman requested me not to take photographs while she was around and I agreed.

She then told us her story, the intimate details of which I cannot divulge here for obvious reasons. In summary, a white man took advantage of her. In other words, her honor was besmirched. She wanted revenge, she said, as she pulled out from her purse two small photographs of the offender.

I soon found out that in this remote region, people very rarely go to the police to seek justice. For many, the mangkukulam is the chief judge in many disputes: whoever he finds guilty he punishes by death or illness.

From what I gathered, anyone who needed the service of Manong Edol must first convince him that revenge is truly justified. Manong Edol explained he does not take every case presented to him. He listens to the account of what took place, weighs the facts, and only takes the case when he is satisfied someone has been truly aggrieved, hurt, or disgraced. Apparently, there are three very serious offenses that merit the use of the paktol: an insult cast on a family; dishonoring a woman; and murder. Manong Edol ignores cases involving politicians or petty crimes.

Manong Edol assured the mother and daughter that he will now take the case. They gave him the two pictures, and wrote the name of the white man on a piece of paper. Before leaving, they gave Manong Edol an envelope containing money. He did not tell me how much money was inside, but he confided later that he usually charges P6,000 to P40,000, depending on the client’s status in life.

Performing the paktol

After the clients left, Manong Edol led us to a small nipa hut (bahay kubo) at the back of his house. By then, the rain had diminished into a drizzle and we navigated easily the short distance, carrying lighted candles to see our way. The house was about ten square meters in size. In the middle was a small table, on top of which was a human skull, a white candle, a small tin can, a piece of white paper, and a pen. It is here where Manong Edol performs the paktol.

In one corner was a small altar with the statue of the Santo Nino and various other miniature statues and pictures of saints. He confirmed he was Roman Catholic, when I asked. In another corner of the room were three cats that seemed very still and quiet, and beside them, more skulls.

Meanwhile, Manong Edol started to perform the ritual. He knelt before the altar and prayed in whispers. He then took out a small book from where he recited more prayers, but in a mysterious language, which Johnson did not understand. It was definitely not Visayan.

After praying, Manong Edol lit the candle and put it inside the tin can, which he placed beside the skull. Taking a piece of paper, he wrote the name of the white man on it and inserted it into the skull. He then burned both photographs given to him by his client, using the candle light. When the photographs disintegrated into ash, he placed them in the tin can and whispered the paktol.

The white man has now been cursed.

“What will happen to him?” I asked.

“He will suffer a terrible illness,” he answered. “Then he will die.”

“What if he asks for forgiveness?”

“If the aggrieved woman forgives him, then I will release the curse. But he must do so soon. When his illness turns to worse, I can no longer reverse the paktol."

“How will you know if the curse took effect?”

“I will receive a call from the client telling me that the person has died.”

The paktol, according to Manong Edol, will take effect as soon as he is finished with the procedure. At this very moment, he told me, the white man would already be suffering from nausea, vomiting, and a terrible headache. In a few days, his stomach will bloat and he will bleed from the inside. No medical doctor can cure the illness caused by paktol. The torment will end with death. The doctors will say that this or that illness caused the patient to die, but he would have actually died because of the paktol.

“How many people have you already put to death by means of the paktol?”

“Hundreds,” he replied. He then pulled out a high school notebook containing all the names of the people he had cursed with the paktol. Indeed, there were hundreds of name written there. I was curious to know if there were familiar names listed in the notebook. I was relieved when I did not find any.

Sorcerer versus sorcerer

“Can you also cure a person who has been hexed by another sorcerer?”

“Oh yes,” Manong Edol said with a hint of pride in his voice, “Everyone here knows my work. If someone has been cursed by another sorcerer, they just come here and I heal them.”

“How do you cure them?”

“I can command the other sorcerer to release the spell.”

"What if he refuses?”

“No sorcerer has refused my command. Otherwise he will be punished by my own hex.”

“Does that mean you have to meet the other sorcerer face to face?” I asked, bewildered.

“Not necessarily,” answered Manong Edol, “I can command the other sorcerers by whispering. They always obey me.”

The skulls

At this point, I could no longer contain my curiosity and asked him about the human skull. “Did this belong to a victim of your paktol?”

“No”, Manong Edol said, “That is actually the skull of a former neighbor who died of a natural cause many years ago. I asked the family if they could give me the skull for my sorcery, and they agreed.” Apparently, most of his neighbors feel honored if Manong Edol asked them for anything, even for the skull of a loved one.

Manong Edol used to perform paktol in a hidden cave in Cang-Atuyom. But one day, he discovered that his secret cave had been found by looters who stole his skull collection. He had to ask other neighbors for the skulls of their dead kin in the nearby cemetery. It was gladly given to him. He then built the nipa house at the back of his house to use for performing his craft in lieu of the looted cave.

“Up to now,” he said with visible pride, “no one has ever said 'no' to me, whenever I ask them for the skull of their relative.”

Also a healer

Manong Edol is also very much in demand for his gift of healing. He can heal those that have been hexed by other sorcerers. He can also heal illnesses that had already been declared hopeless cases by medical doctors. For this reason, Manong Edol is also considered a mananambal (shaman).

****

Meanwhile, it was getting very late in the night. Manong Edol invited us to supper which we politely declined. We bade our goodbyes and thanked him for his time.

Afterwards, Johnson and I rode the habal-habal and drove in the night towards the lodging house where I was staying. Nights in Siquijor could be very dark because there were no street lamps to guide motorists. I was feeling edgy at the thought of driving in this remote place very late at night. Trees were everywhere around and there were very few houses along the narrow dirt road. I had the eerie feeling someone was watching us from among the trees.

In about an hour we reached the lodging house safely. Meanwhile, Johnson bade his adieu. When I entered my room, I dropped my photographic equipment at the foot of the bed and lay down to rest. I was tempted to turn on my camera and see what had been recorded. But an eerie feeling stopped me; instead, I turned off the lights and closed my eyes. Strangely, the darkness gave me comfort. I prayed and fell into a sound sleep.

*Before traveling to Siquijor, I studied the excellent book of the prominent anthropologist Richard Lieban about witchcraft in the Visayas, entitled Cebuano Sorcery: Malign magic in the Philippines. It is a well-researched book based on his observations and interviews among the locals. I found many similarities between some of the witchcraft techniques described by Dr. Lieban and those used by Manong Edol.