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By Karl Wilson
Agence France-Presse
Filipinos know Siquijor as the
mystic island.
Feared by many for its sorcerers,
known locally as mambabarangs, the island has also earned a
reputation for the apparently incredible powers of its local
healers, or mananambals.
A 30-minute ferry ride from
Dumaguete City, the tiny, pristine island skirted by white beaches
and surrounded by clear blue water has become a major draw card for
believers and the curious alike.
Among Siquijor’s better-known
clients is said to be Imelda Marcos, the former first lady and widow
of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Locals tell of how a curse was
put on her in the 1970s during the building of the San Juanico
Bridge that connects the islands of Samar and Leyte and which was a
pet project of the late dictator.
The story goes that a
“mermaid” was injured during the construction work and in
retaliation Imelda was cursed with a spell that made scales grow on
her legs.
Imelda sent a helicopter from
Malacañang to fetch a powerful Siquijor healer called Boscia
Bulongon, who cured her and was paid handsomely.
Bulongon returned to the island
and buried the money but about two decades later was beaten to death
by her grandson because she refused to give him the money. Locals
say he used a piece of wood to kill her because the woman was
invulnerable to bullets and knives.
From the rich and famous to the
curious Siquijor is attracting Filipinos and foreigners—especially
around Easter—for what is commonly referred to as the “Witches
Festival” when people buy potions for everything from improving
their sex life to curing terminal illnesses.
The healers begin collecting the
herbs, plants and sea creatures that go into their potions each
Friday after Ash Wednesday, 40 days before Good Friday.
On Good Friday they will have
gathered everything they need to make potions for the coming year,
and on Saturday they start to chop and mix the ingredients.
Nothing will be collected again
until Ash Wednesday the following year.
It remains a mystery why the
rituals of a craft often associated with the darker arts should be
so closely linked to Christian tradition.
“The process of making potions
is tied in with the resurrection of Christ. It’s a rebirth of
power,” explained Pedro “Endoy” Tumapon, a respected local
herbalist who, at 80, is still fit and has customers from all over
the Philippines who buy his herbal medicines. “That is why it is
done during Holy Week.”
Asked why, he answered simply:
“That’s just the way it is.”
One of the island’s most-famous
healers is Lolo Juan Ponce, 92, who lives in a small village in the
hills surrounded by forests rich in the herbs and plants he uses in
his potions.
Ponce learned his craft from his
father, who had learned it from his father, who learned it from his.
“Nothing is written down,” he
said, his daughter Diosdada acting a translator.
Sitting outside his modest bamboo
hut as women grated cassava and his grandchildren played nearby
Ponce said he had never visited a “real” doctor.
“They come to me,” he said
smiling through his few remaining teeth.
He told the story of a Danish
doctor with an incurable rash on his hands who read about the
healers of Siquijor and flew from Denmark for treatment.
“He found me and asked if I
could do anything for him. I told him I have everything here. I
rubbed oils into his hands and within a month the rash had gone. He
could not explain what happened but he was a doctor.”
Then there was the woman from New
Jersey who had a bloated stomach.
“Doctors could not help her,”
he said sitting under a crucifix with Christ bleeding from the hands
and feet. “She read about me in a magazine and flew out. I cured
her, too. That was in 1992. She still sends Christmas presents.”
The day AFP visited Endoy in his
nearby village home, Girlie Maing, 48, from Zamboanga was visiting.
Diabetic since her early 20s she said she had spent much of her life
on daily insulin shots just to stay alive.
A believer in magic, she said her
mother died from a curse placed on her by an adversary in a land
dispute. “She was told that her stomach would grow when the tide
goes out and settle when it comes back in again,” said Maing.
“This went on for months and months. Doctors could do nothing and
she eventually died.”
Four years ago a friend from
Siquijor told her about the healers and suggested she visit. “So I
came to see Endoy to see what he could do. Today, I am cured and my
doctors say it is a miracle. They can’t explain it.”
Endoy, who had returned from the
forest carrying an old ants nest like a hunter’s victory trophy,
said, “This is full of so many good things for healing.”
Breaking off part of the woody,
brown nest he rubbed it between his fingers, squeezing out a wet,
bright green substance which he said was good for breast cancer
among other things.
His son-in-law, Noel, who was a
nonbeliever but is now learning from Endoy, said he had cysts on his
eyes but after using the green substance from the nest they
disappeared.
Endoy who has been practicing
herbal medicine most of his life is now cataloguing many of the
herbs he uses for the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources.
“It is wrong to call us white
witches,” he said. “We are herbalists. And we cure. Everything
you want is here in the forest or in the sea.”
But does he believe in sorcerers
and black magic?
“Yes, because the people who
have been cursed come to me for help,” he said, telling the story
of a man who passed live beetles and another who vomited bumblebees
after being cursed.
“I know science can’t explain
these things, that is why some people call it witchcraft. But what
we practice is natural medicine.”
No one on the island will admit
to being a sorcerer or a black witch but for P6,000 and upward,
depending on what harm you want to inflict, one can be found.
These so-called witches guard
their privacy and refuse to give interviews. But in the hills are
said to be caves where pictures of the victims of curses can be
found.
Adultery and land disputes are
common reasons for hiring the services of a black witch.
Their rituals are conducted at
night usually during the full moon.
“There were a lot on the island
but during the war [World War II] most of them fled,” Endoy said.
“Locals found an excuse to burn their homes.”
 --AFP
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