My mom and her siblings were born and raised in one of the towns in Samar.  I always thought of the place as an enchanting place.  My siblings and I would spend our summers there with our cousins when we were kids.  And my mom and her siblings will usually tell us about their adventures when they were younger.  One of the favorite stories that I love to hear is the story of one of my aunts.  She was the eldest among my aunts and she was a good cook.

She was the one who taught my mom how to cook.  Since my aunt is a good cook, a lot of people will ask her to prepare the dishes that they will serve during special holidays.  And after cooking my aunt will usually drink “tuba” (a local wine made of fermented coconut water/juice). At that time the bridge that was connecting the town to one of its “barangay” (local term for a village) that is located on the other side of the river was still made of wood. One night after she cooked for one of their relatives, my aunt went home after midnight.  She was accompanied by two of their cousins.  It was very quiet for the people in the town will usually go to sleep early since most of them are farmers.

So there were only three of them on the bridge when they heard footsteps behind them.  During that time, women wear wooden slippers which we call “bakya” and the bridge was lit by gas lamps.  They were a bit tipsy then but they had goose bumps.  My aunt asked them to check out who it was because there were talks about a big piggy that stands on its two hind legs and wears a pair of “bakya” on the bridge.  People at that believe in “aswangs” or people who transform into monsters and eat people.  So they looked back and they were taken aback when they saw what it was.

It was the big piggy in a bakya.  And it was so big that my two uncles got scared that they almost carried my aunt to the other end of the bridge and ran like hell.  It was so funny and now that I’m older, I still find it funny.   However, I can’t help but ask; maybe they were just drunk that they imagined things.  Maybe it was really a pig on the bridge which got loose from a pen somewhere and that the tapping on the footbridge may have been created by the hoofs of the pig?  Or maybe it was just a very fat woman who never goes out of her house during the day because she doesn’t like the sun?