Among aswangs and other beings, Part 2

By Michael Caesar C. Tubal

Two weeks ago, I began the first installment of my two-part series exploring literary works in the Philippines that feature the aswang, kapre, manananggal, and other creatures and deities drawn from Filipino folklore and mythology. This seems like the perfect time to continue, especially with the growing buzz around the Hollywood-produced animated film The Forgotten Island, which draws inspiration from Philippine mythology and features acclaimed Filipina actress Liza Soberano.

For this second installment, I begin with another personal favorite: Arnold Arre’s groundbreaking graphic novel The Mythology Class. The book reimagines figures and stories from Filipino mythology within a modern setting, bringing the supernatural into contemporary Manila.

The story follows Nicole, a college student fascinated by old Filipino ghost stories whose life changes when a mysterious woman invites her to join a secret “mythology class.” Nicole and her classmates soon discover that the myths they have heard since childhood are not merely stories. Hidden within modern Manila are creatures such as tikbalang and kapre, existing alongside people who have largely forgotten them. When an ancient evil threatens the city, these seemingly ordinary students are drawn into a battle much larger than themselves. Along the way, they encounter figures from Philippine folklore and epic tradition, including Lam-ang, and find themselves fighting creatures they once knew only from stories.

What makes The Mythology Class particularly memorable is the ease with which it places ancient mythology within contemporary urban life. It also made Philippine publishing history as the first comic book to receive a National Book Award.

While The Mythology Class brings mythology into modern Manila, Emiliana Kampilan’s Dead Balagtas, Tomo 1: Mga Sayaw ng Dagat at Lupa takes a broader approach. It rebuilds the story of the Philippines itself, beginning with the heartbreak of ancient gods and moving toward the complicated realities of contemporary Filipino relationships.

Kampilan blends science, local mythology, history, and social commentary. Guided by the figure of a babaylan, the graphic novel tells interconnected stories centered on ordinary people while bringing gender, sexuality, identity, and social inequality into its reimagining of the Filipino past. Instead of seeing mythology as something stuck in the distant past, Dead Balagtas uses it to ask very contemporary questions about who we are.

The result is less a conventional history lesson than an emotional map of a people constantly adapting, much like the land beneath them. Beautifully illustrated and intellectually playful, Dead Balagtas suggests that the past is not a static museum piece but something continually retold and renegotiated. The work received recognition at the 2018 National Book Awards.

From these contemporary reimaginings, we can move closer to home. Golden Realms: Inheriting the Panay Sugidanun Manga turns to the Sugidanun, the vast oral epic tradition of the Panay Bukidnon of Central Panay. The project is a collaboration involving Thrive Art Projects, the Japan Foundation, Manila, and members of the Panay Bukidnon community, presenting these narratives through the visual language of manga. Available digitally (goldenrealms.thriveart.org) in English and Japanese, the adaptation introduces readers to cultural heroes such as Humadapnon and Labaw Dunggon.

What makes Golden Realms especially important is the collaboration behind it. The independent art collective, led by artist Kristoffer Brasileño, worked with Panay Bukidnon elder-chanters Romulo and Leopoldo Caballero. Allyn Canja-Brasileño of Thrive Art, together with writer Adelle Pacificar, adapted recorded oral transcriptions into scripts, while local Ilonggo artists worked on the visual representation of traditional clothing, landscapes, characters, and cultural details.

Here, adaptation does more than retell an old story in a new form. Manga, a visual form strongly associated with Japan, becomes a bridge through which the Sugidanun can travel to younger and even international audiences without severing its connection to the community from which it comes.

And if Golden Realms brings the epics of Panay into a new visual form, Owamat shows that mythmaking in Western Visayas is still very much alive. An independent fantasy-adventure comic published by Iloilo City’s Pasyon Komiks collective, Owamat is written by Hermz Gacho and illustrated by Zak Bravo and serves as the collective’s flagship project.

Set in 2030, when belief in local magic, folklore, and mythical creatures has nearly disappeared, the story follows Aling Sita, a modern-day babaylan. Accompanied by her cat, Bornok, and a Brahminy kite named Dappy, she uses her spiritual abilities to protect the human world from supernatural threats. When a child disappears from a rural village, Aling Sita must venture into mystical realms and confront dangerous entities.

The title has since grown through collaborative anthology volumes and contributes to the body of contemporary Hiligaynon comics and literature. Its premise is particularly fitting: what happens to mythical creatures when people stop believing in them? In a way, that question also connects all the works discussed here.

This makes the renewed interest in The Forgotten Island timely. Philippine mythology does not need Hollywood to make it interesting; Filipino writers, artists, chanters, and storytellers have kept these worlds alive for generations. From Arre’s Manila to Kampilan’s reimagined history, from the mountains of Central Panay to the contemporary comics of Iloilo, our mythical creatures have never really disappeared. They have simply learned to inhabit new pages, new forms, and new generations of storytellers.

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Michael Caesar C. Tubal teaches language, literature, and pedagogy at West Visayas State University College of Education. In his free time, if he is not reading or writing, he watches past episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race or joins book clubs in Iloilo City.