During Women’s Month 2025, the author Dennis B. Gonzaga dedicates this month-long series entitled “BAYI” to 31 women of culture, creativity and courage. The first five features focus on women as ideas expressed through legends and myths.

Ina: The City is a Woman.

At its center beats the heart of a persona and an idea that has defined the identity of a people. Beyond the theological prescription and the historical description is an idea that resonates well with the fiercely spiritual Nagueños and Bikolnons: the City is a Mother–caring, nurturing, sustaining.

The City is Ina.

She is mother to the multitude, borne on the collective shoulders of the proud and the penitent, the refined and the raucous, the moneyed and the mendicant. Every year, on the week of her feast, she accepts the prayers, burdens, gratitudes, fears, and aspirations of her children.

She endures with patience and resilience. She is a mother even as her children are dull to her small miracles and to her subtle wonders. We call on her in our tribulations, yet we spoil her gifts in our apathy and ignorance.

We kneel before Ina, but do we offer the same degree and quality of respect to her fellow women? We pray before Ina, yet we are not as partial to Nature, her fellow mother. We cut down the trees, we muddle the rivers. Are we not reminded that the City is the tree, the river, and the shrine? We call upon Ina to bring peace upon our nation, yet we enable oppressors to run rampant in our cultural and political landscape.

The City is Ina. But have we proven ourselves a City worthy of Ina?

Daragang Magayon

The story of Daragang Magayon is timeless, yet it is also timebound : a woman of exceptional beauty who remains a pawn to tribal politics. The trope of the beautiful maiden incapable of fending for herself, dependent on the munificence of suitors, and becoming the cause of depravity and conflict is a persistent one. Often, the veil of sacredness that we cast upon myth and faith blind us to the injustice we enable.

In most variations of her myth, Daragang Magayon is the object of desire of men from far and wide. She possesses two things of great political value : her peerless beauty and her status as the daughter of a chieftain. Yet she is incapable of using these boons to subvert the norm. It is her father who ascertains that she has come of age to marry. She is rabidly pursued by Pagtuga. She instantly falls for the charm of Panganoron when he rescues her because she does not know how to swim. The implication is that there is no other recourse other than what society has determined for a woman. Her beauty exists only to be desired, claimed, and possessed.

It is only upon her death that she is released from the curse of her station and her status. It is only after her death that she evolves into a literal force of nature capable of burning and destroying the world at her feet. In death, she retained her magnificent beauty, but she has also finally commanded the fear and respect of everyone, chieftains and commoners alike.

In life, her passions were repressed. In death, her rage is as formidable as her beauty. But the price of that ascension is a steep price to pay. And as a society, we should know better than to demand such a great price for equity.

Oryol

Coiled at the very heart of the Ibalong epic is the human-serpent Oryol, queen of the grotesquerie that roamed across the land since the dawn of time. Her beautiful voice was the law that kept nature in balance. Everything was well until the settlers came. They came with the Promethean promise of fire. The promise of fire yielded steel with which they leveled the land of its original inhabitants and brought cultivation and edification.

What is mostly unspoken in this narrative of Bikolandia’s origin story is how Oryol tipped the scales of mythology and history. Much is written about the brute strength of Baltog, the conspicuous courage of Handiong and his men, and the cunning of Bantong. Yet Baltog’s victory over the boar would have been inconsequential if Oryol resisted the charms of Handiong. Handiong had to pursue her and tame her. But it is not Oryol that he truly desires. It is only her voice that he requires as a tool of conquest.

And here is where the relevance of Oryol’s character is diminished to the point that it becomes problematic. The daughter and heiress of the primeval forces of nature surrendering to a messianic figure and consequently betraying her kind is a complicated portion of the narrative that is glossed over. We are again confronted with the problematic idea of a woman whose beauty–manifested through her alluring voice–is validated only because it serves the agenda of another. It does not belong to her. It belongs to her captor. Her queenship has legitimacy only because it serves a patriarchal interest.

Mythology belongs to the people. People are dynamic, and so are the worldviews and institutions they subscribe to. Our challenge is to draw out and evaluate the key message of traditional myths in the context of their time and space, and then either retell or challenge them through our contemporary lenses. Perhaps it is long overdue that Oryol reclaims her voice and her queenship.

Haliya

Nature is a generous benefactor but an irreproachable castigator. This is the cycle of creation and destruction that sustains life. In the grand mythologies of this dynamic process is symbolized by the imposing presence of world serpents : Jörmungandr, Seshanaga, Ouroboros, Mehen.

In Philippine and Bikolnon mythology, Bakunawa is the world devourer. Following a cosmic cycle, it comes to claim the moon and to cast its deathly shadow upon the people. And every time, it is thwarted not by an army of men nor by the brute strength of a monomythic folk hero, but by the chants and dance of a woman who takes on the role of both a priestess and a warrior.

This woman standing vigilant is Haliya. The colossal serpent fears the woman and retreats back into the darkness. Of course, this cosmic ritual is repeated. Bakunawa who is eternally driven by hunger, instinct, and desire must return for its prey. And Haliya stands guard every time.

It is Haliya’s dance that empowers the people. It is her summons that awaken the masses to transcend their deep-seated fear and to realize that together, they are capable of pushing the threat of annihilation back. The woman, the warrior, the priestess, has no need for an army of shields and spears.

It is also Haliya’s song that tames the Bakunawa’s primal appetites. The gods themselves have no power to overcome the world serpent. Haliya’s presence and vigilance is potent, sublime, unfettered by the cultural bounds of mortal politics. She sings and dances, and the night listens and witnesses.

Aswang

Beauty is an ideal to aspire to. But it can also be a curse to bear without end. This is the story of the Aswang. In folklore, the Aswang must assume the form of a woman of striking presence to hide among humankind, so that she could sneak out and prey at night. Her beauty is desired, her hunger is reviled. Either way, she is hunted.

The persistence of this myth once exacted a toll on the reputation of women, particularly those gifted with an uncanny quality of physical beauty that did not conform to the milieu. The few who exceeded the social level could only be the handiwork of dark forces. The logic was that for one to possess great beauty, there must be an equivalent price to pay in blood, in gore, in innocence.

Society enables the notion that individuals cannot be fully faulted for their desires. Surely, a temptress is to be blamed for eroding the character of a moral society. The distorted justification is that spouses who cheat do so only because it was impossible to resist the Aswang’s enchantment. The injustice is in the implication that a woman can be desired, and then discarded when her presence and her station is a threat to reputation and morals.

When the desire and decay become too difficult to resist, its source must be restrained, annihilated even. We can only imagine how the darker aspects of the Aswang myth became a manner for social absolution, a twisted rationale to justify and resolve domestic scandals.

The symbolic and ritualistic act of expelling the Aswang who prowls at the heart of the village is one that spares the true transgressors from judgments and allows the collective to hold on to its precarious moral threads.

About the author:

DENNIS B. GONZAGA: Writer, critic, and academician. Former Humanities faculty at Ateneo de Naga University. Curator of The 416 Art Space in Naga City. Advocate for local culture. AB Political Science graduate, Ateneo de Naga University; MA Asian Studies graduate , University of the Philippines.