R I Z A L
The Myth of Wawa Dam
(Montalban, Rizal)
The limestone walls of Wawa Dam is a majestic site. It has a quiet river, huge limestone rocks, caves, and tranquil scenery which depict a mystical scene. This magnificent view in Montalban, Rizal has its own local folklore about its existence.
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It starts with the story of Bernardo Carpio who grew up in San Mateo, Rizal and was part of a rebellion against the Spanish who feared his incredible strength. Employing the powers of a local engkantado (shaman), he was trapped in between two rocks through supernatural means. Calling for a parley, they lured him towards a cave in the mountains of Montalban. The lad fell for the trap. The engkantado used his agimat (talisman) and Bernardo Carpio was caught between two boulders which the shaman had caused to grind each other.
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The legend says he was not killed, but was trapped between these two boulders. He was unable to escape because the talisman’s power was as great as his own strength. When Carpio’s co-conspirators arrived at the cave to rescue him, they were blocked from the cave by a series of cave-ins that killed several of the men. People soon surmised that whenever an earthquake happens, it is caused by Bernardo Carpio trying to free himself from the mountain.
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The Tale of Puente del Diablo
Some call it Punta del Diablo. Yet, since Punta is "point or up" in Spanish and the legend tells of a "bridge", the proper terms seem to be the Spanish Puente.
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Puente del Diablo in Binangonan, Rizal, is actually a peninsular hill about 20 meters high extending out some 100 meters into the waters of Laguna de Bay. During summer when it has no vegetation growing from its many crags and cracks, its huge, somewhat rectangular rocks give it the appearance of a ruined massive stone bridge.
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The story goes that in the early part of the Spanish period, there lived in a sitio of barrio Pilapila (about 2 kilometers southeast of the poblacion or town proper of Binangonan) a beautiful maiden whose hand was sought in marriage by many suitors. The low hill on which their bahay-kubo or nipa hut stood is today still called Pulo though now connected to the mainland, suggesting that the place was once a small island.
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The girl was a pious woman who went to church on the poblacion as there was yet no chapel in the nearby barrio of Pilapila at that time.
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Among the girl's suitors was said to be a handsome European who in all appearances was a nobleman. He sported a thin mustache, and dressed in a black suit complete with cane and top hat. And while the other suitors had simply tired out in pursuing their quest of winning the girl's affections, this foreigner kept up his courtship in earnest.
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But it seemed the girl was determined to stay out of any romantic relationship, being devoted to religious and social work. She devised innumerable excuses to stave many suitors. Then, perhaps in keeping with the ancient courtship custom where a girl does not flatly say "no" to a man but instead demands the accomplishment of difficult tasks, she confronted the European with a really impossible proposition. She asked him to construct a stone-bridge from their place to the opposite bank to Laguna de Bay, a distance of about 15 kilometers across the lake. And the bridge must be completed overnight. With that, the girl hoped to put to an end his persistent courtship.
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But alas, the man took up the challenge. And that very evening as dusk fell, the grating sounds of rocks, big stones and boulders being carved and moved could be heard in the place. People from nearby Pilapila could only wonder what commotion was all about. But the girl and her father and mother knew. As they were the only inhabitants of the Pulo, only they could see through the enveloping darkness that the foot of the stone-bridge was already being constructed.
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"He must surely be a very wealthy man," said the girl's father. "Imagine being able to hire all those men to work on such a long bridge. There must be a hundred of them out there."
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"They will not be able to finish that bridge till morning", the girl answered, trying to reassure herself.
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The work went on into the night, and into the early morning hours. And the noise grew fainter and fainter as the bridge got longer into the lake. The girl could not sleep, worried that the bridge would be finished on time, that she would be compelled to marry the European. Curious, she decided to have a look at the work being done.
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She thus went down the hill and behold - in the silvery light of the rising moon, she saw that the workers were not human beings: they had wings like bats, tails like lions, and horns like goats! They were demons! Hundreds of them, her European suitor, still in his white frilled shirt, was one of them - a devil! To the girl, he looked like Satan himself - with claws for hands and hooves for feet, and with eyes burning like red-hot coals.
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Trembling with her fear, the girl was momentarily stunned. But after a short while, she ran away from the scene, towards the poblacion.
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She pounded hard on the door of the convento where the parish priest stayed. Informed of the situation the priest hurriedly led the way inside the church and after saying a short prayer before the altar went straight to the belfry. There, he pulled at the ropes of the great bell whose sound could be heard for miles around. This bell was rung only in cases of emergencies such as fires, pirate and tulisanes attacks, to alert the townspeople, and in such instances as this one now in progress.
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The sound of the great bell travelled to Pulo, and the demons scampered away in fright. The European suitor - Satan - twisted and growled in defiance, but nonetheless also flew away. The half-finished bridge disintegrated and collapsed, the big stone slabs making loud splashes on the waters of the lakes as they fell, and sending out huge waves to the shore. By now, people in Pilapila and the poblacion, earlier awakened by the ringing of the huge church bell, had gathered on the Lakeshore, attracted by the thunderous noise made by the rocks as the bridge collapsed.
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And in the breaking light of dawn, they saw the ruins of the foot of what could have been El Puente del Diablo (The Bridge of the Devil), and they shivered with fright as they looked at the ripples on the water, emanating from the spot on the lake where the rest of the bridge had sunk.
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Puente del Diablo still stands at Pilapila up to this day - a grim reminder to everyone who shudders at the thought of a devil’s design that almost succeeded.
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The Maiden Who was Turned into a Myth
On a quiet town of Talim Island in Binangonan, Rizal is a curious mountain that resembles the robust breast of a young, slim virgin. Mt. “Susong Dalaga” (“breast of a young virgin”) has many tales and myths circulating in the lowland vicinities, and this myth version is among them.
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A young virgin lying down the green meadows of a nearby hill—this is how most old folks in the locality of Sapang in Talim would probably start the myth on the 200-meter high mountain that is said to be inhabited by monkeys, iguanas, and wild boars. The native beauty of this unnamed teenage virgin was once said to be the town’s pride and the townsmen’s obsession. She had lots of suitors, and the myth even ventures to say that all the men of the place and the adjacent towns all came running after her.
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She had the most conspicuously upright breasts of all the women in the place, and made sure the prominence was even more pronounced through the showy dresses she wore. Her suitors feasted their eyes on her most striking feature—the myth depicting men falling heads over heels, drowning in their wild imagination.
But the young virgin didn’t seem impressed by any of them. All she ever did was to go up the hill and lie down to watch the distant Laguna Bay quietly. Nobody knew exactly where she lived—the myth paints her as an elusive maiden, suddenly seen ambling in pathways, and then disappearing into the thickets. Accordingly, she was some kind of a human with the delicate features of a mythical creature—a nymphet’s fine physique, a voice as soft as the bay’s breeze, a face as clear as a summer morning sky, and hair as full as the fields in harvest, and black as the Binangonan night.
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Then the women of the vicinity started turning against her. Losing their husbands and sons to this alluring damsel, they sought to bury her alive and leave nothing of her but a myth, assigning her memory to oblivion. And one night they did so. Spotting her strolling to her favorite hilltop, they choked her to death and buried her right on the hilltop, ending her life and starting her myth.
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Mornings after, the hilltop gradually transformed to resemble the full-bodied breast of a young virgin. Even to this day, men stop to stare in wonder at the amazing likeness it has to the real thing—and if the myth was real after all.
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References:
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The Maiden Who was Turned into a Myth. (2008, December 30). Retrieved from https://www.philippinesinsider.com/myths-folklore-superstition/the-maiden-who-was-turned-into-a-myth/
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Myths, Legends, Folktales in Region 4A-CALABARZON. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://rodriguezjane.blogspot.com/2016/04/myths-legends-folktales-in-region-4a.html
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The Tale of Puente del Diablo. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.vigattintourism.com/tourism/articles/The-Tale-of-Puente-del-Diablo
