The Duwendes
The first occurrence happened when, as an 8-year old, I came with my dad to inspect our house which was then almost finished. When we went around the house (which was smaller than it was today), my dad noticed that the hole reserved for an exhaust fan was covered with a glass window (jalousies). The carpenters were earlier instructed to just cover it with plywood. Well, first, we have no jalousies cut for that hole. Second, the jalousies had small fingerprints on them. We suspected "duwendes" (or dwarfs) which the local folk said abounded our place. There was also a time during the house construction that our camera was knocked down from a make-shift bench without anyone touching it. Hmmm...so what about our finished house having been photographed and when the film was developed, it showed an unfinished house? Then when the house was re-photographed with a carpenter in it, the film was okay? At one time, my sister's friend who slept over in her room woke up to see a small man in a dwarf's outfit pushing the buttons of the TV in the room. This poor girl never came back to our house. My young mind accepted it is a fact that we simply had to live with these little creatures from another dimension.
Of Ghosts and Spirits
Years after having lived in our house, many ghost stories have been shared among family members and house helpers. These spirit encounters became more frequent after our house was renovated -- and blessed three times!
One personal encounter was when, at 17, I was on the phone with a friend who I didn't know has been dead for 3 days already. It was a Saturday, the day of her funeral. When I was about 24 years old, I was throwing old stuff into a metal trash bin in my upstairs room. I took fancy in burning them. As I went down the stairs, I heard the voice of my brother telling me to come upstairs quick! One of our housemaids heard the call, too. As we were half-way towards the hallway leading to our rooms upstairs, I told our housemaid to freeze. I told her, my brother was in his dormitory and not in our house. So who was that voice? We decided to go up the room an hour later to confirm my statement.
These occurrences and other weird ones went on till I got married with my wife and kids encountering the same. We moved to our own house 5 minutes away more than 10 years ago and still, even my brother who visits from the U.S. once in awhile still goes through these strange encounters. Again, we never were able to confirm through a photograph or video of the "culprits" until this year.
Here's a picture from a cellphone photograph by my daughter of her sister during one of the sleepovers we had while our house was being renovated. Notice the woman in the lower right side of the photograph. My daughter actually felt a sting in her eye when the photo was taken. She surmised this due to the "hair" of the woman who flung herself beside my daughter. The color of the "woman" is pale and seems to be asleep or "dead." There even seems to be a scar on the woman's right side of her face.
My brother told us that he has seen a woman's spirit many times in the house. Usually, in front of a mirror or looking out a window. Is this her?
Here's another picture, this time taken by me in the house of my wife's cousin in the village across ours. Notice the picture of a small female at the lower right side of the photograph. My cellphone was used for this.
We were told that the cities of Parañaque, Las Piñas and Muntinlupa traverses a kingdom of "duwendes" and that spirits are among us. Whatever the theory, the photos do not lie. I'm no expert in these things, and am not a prankster.
Believe 'em or not.
