Cures and curses

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

(This feature can be found in Paranormal Magazine issue 42)

My meeting with an Filipino sorcerer.

OWEN ELIAS has a strong interest in the people and culture of the Philippines. In Cebu City he tracked down a venerable witchdoctor and faith healer who allowed him to view his ‘ritual room’.

Consisting of 7,000 islands, with diverse peoples cultures and languages, the Phillipines is rich in superstition and myths.

The beautiful island of Cebu lies in the central region of the Philippines known as the Visayas. Cebu City, called the Queen City of the South, is the oldest city in the Philippines, tracing is roots back to Spanish colonial times.

It was the gateway for the Spanish to conquer the Philippines: in 1521 Ferdinand Magellan landed and planted the cross in Cebu in the name of the King of Spain and the Roman Catholic Church.

Cebu City is a mix of modern shopping malls, centres of information technology, and call centres, but desperate poverty is the way of life for many who live there.

The people have deeply held religious beliefs. The majority are Roman Catholic but their Christian faith sits comfortably alongside a strong following in Kulam (magic/spells), witches/ sorcerers, and healers.

In Cebu City I met Guillermo Sanchez, who is both a Mangkukulam (sorcerer) and an Albularyo (folk medicine healer). 78-year-old Guillermo has a firm belief in his power and healing abilities. His reputation is well known throughout a suburb of Cebu, called Mandaue. People travel from all over the island to seek Guillermo’s powers of healing and witchcraft and he claims he can treat conditions ranging from broken bones to cancer, referring to those that seek his help as ‘patients’.

Guillermo described to me how he got his power. He said he was 27 years old when he dreamt about a book he must read. When he woke up from his sleep a book had appeared beside him and a light was glowing from it.

The light then started to move out of the book and he followed, it around the Philippines for a year. During this journey six other books appeared to him which he collected. It was then that he started to heal people.

Guillermo said these seven books contain Latin prayers and spells to treat every type of illness. The books form a large part of his knowledge and power – although their exact contents are known only to him – which he uses in his healing rituals. He said these prayers and spells originate from ‘God the Father’, who Guillermo says is the source of his ultimate power. He claims to be a channel for God. He holds his healing sessions on a Tuesday and Friday, which he says are the optimum days for ‘God the Father’ to work through him and heal the sick.

Inside his front door is a room where he has two statues of Santo Nino – the black child Christ – the icon of Cebu and famous throughout the Philippines. He claimed to have had a third statue of Santo Nino many years ago but it came to life and walked out of his house one day, as witnessed by all of his neighbours. These statues represented his faith in Roman Catholicism: Santo Nino holds a firm place in his home and life and ultimately his healings.

Guillermo led me to a little room on the side of his house. The letters S.T.T.T.S were clearly marked on the door. Guilllermo explained these letters were a spell to protect his property and work: there would be with fatal consequences for anyone who tried to steal from him. He said he allows people who believe in him to use these letters on their property for protection but

does not allow anyone to know the exact meaning of the spell, as it was devised by him. He was very confident in the power of its protection and even invited me to use it on my own front door.

The inside of his ritual room was truly of ‘voodoo’ character. It contained an altar, which is made up of large church candles with photos of ‘patients’ attached to them. In front of the altar was a wooden bed where his patients sit while he performs the healing. On a sideboard stand glass bottles filled with oil. Guillermo said the bottles are refilled every week by God the Father as he is too old to crush coconuts to extract the oil himself.

Guillermo lights the candles every evening at 8pm to invoke the spirits. He pointed to a photo attached to one candle and told me that this patient is the wife of a governor from another island in the Philippines who came to seek his healing power. He added that families of famous Filipino politicians have recently sought his help to cure them of illnesses. He claimed that many years ago the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos had come to his home to seek help in lifting a curse that had been put on him by another Mangkukulam.

Guillermo then produced a ‘habak’ – a belt with pouches that he wears during his rituals. He said each pocket contained either

a stone or bottle of oil/herbs, and these were another source of his power to heal.

I asked Guillermo to explain the carrier bags hanging above the altar. He replied they are the spells he had used to bring cheating husbands back to their wives.

He also spoke about how he uses Kulam to draw out insects causing sickness from patients’ bodies. This reminded me of a story I was told by a believer of Guillermo Sanchez. The witness said he saw worms or maggots come out of the mouth, ears and nose of a sick person.

Guillermo claimed that his power caused the infamous Mananngal (a humanoid bat-like monster) to crash onto the roof of his house. He also said that he had chopped down trees around his house to clear away the Kapre, monsters that live in the trees.

By this time I was curious to know about Guillermo’s involvement in the darker side of Kulam, so I asked him if he places curses on people. He admitted that he had done so, claiming to have cursed many people to death. This was done, he said, by exacerbating a person’s existing health complaint, such as using high blood pressure to induce a heart attack.

He claimed that for a fee he can curse someone to death within seven consecutive Fridays, and it is even possible to speed things up to be done within three consecutive Fridays – but that costs more.

I asked Guillermo how he feels about doing such things to a person he has probably never met. He replied that he had stopped cursing people when he was 60 years old as he doesn’t want such things on his conscience any more. He also said he used to go to the grave of the victim he cursed and beg for forgiveness. In addition he claims to have helped the souls of victims of crime seek revenge by cursing the offender to death. These were the only instances Guillermo said he converses with the dead.

He also spoke about how he has had numerous Mangkukulam enemies over the years and some have attempted to poison him. But he has been able to save himself using his powers of healing.

It was made clear to me by Guillermo that he does not take money for his healings; he said his patients can place an offering of any amount on the altar if they want to as a thanks to God the Father for his healing power.

Guillermo is a lively character and is clearly well known in the suburbs of Cebu. Many people I spoke to are convinced of his powers. For me Guillermo Sanchez represents the blend of Catholicism and Filipino folk healing that underlies Filipino society, and also the darker side of Kulam that is deeply rooted in the islands.

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