Blog post 7: Philippine Witchcraft and Sorceries (2)

Have you ever experience being stung by needles? Or perhaps having an illness without an explanation? These things might be the work of a Witch. People in the Philippines also believes in the existence of these kinds of people. Even up to know there are still rumors roaming around the country of the Philippines. What are the things that these witches are capable of? Why are they doing these kind of things? Who could these people be? There are a lot of questions that I wanted to ask but some of them were never answered up to now. This time, I want to talk about the other kind of Witchcraft users which are called the "mangkukulam".



As I was browsing for an article about mangkukulams, I came a cross the article named "Encounter with a Mangkukulam" by Jesselynn Dela Cruz on the site called lifestyle.inquirer.net. The article talked about how people suffer from the hex and curses of the mangkukulam but luckily there are people who can counter and cure the hex and curses from the victims. I would like to talk about the people who can counter the power of mangkukulams and other mythical creatures next time. Going back to the article, it also talked about how someone met the mangkukulam face-to-face. I couldn't stop my self from feeling scared while reading the article because it's like the living proof of the existence of the mangkukulams. On the other hand, there are people who can counter them so we should not panic that much. I also noticed that the article talked about the term called "bati". It's like an unintentional hex that can cause someone to feel somehow bad or a little sick. My family believes in the "bati", but I don't think that this is some kind of black magic since anyone can do this without them knowing it. The cure to this hex is very simple. You just need to rub the abdomen of the one who feels that they are under the "bati" spell.

Mangkukulams also use dolls to put a curse on their victims same as the Mambabarang. Usually they use pins on the the doll and that explains the question earlier. Anyway, I was shocked after reading the news article entitled "SOCO: Mangkukulam" by Koryn Iledan on the site www.abs-cbnnews.com stated something about a feud between two families. It was a tragic story since two elder people got shot by someone. The victims were a couple. The original motif of the criminal was to kill only the old woman but he killed the husband in the process. The reason behind his crime was somehow irrelevant. He said that he only did that because he thought the old woman was a witch, there fore the old woman was practicing witchcraft. It's good to know that they found the Justice they seek because the criminals got what they served.


As for my conclusion, I believe that there are really mangkukulams out there who perform witch crafts and dark magics but there are still people who fight against them. Aside from that, we should not commit crime by the reason that you "think" a person is practicing witch craft. Do not jump to conclusion at the very instant you think of something, first you must gather information and proof about your hypothesis or ideas.