Every Holy Week, Filipino Creatures Grow Stronger. Here's the Dark Reason Why!

Every Holy Week, the Philippines goes quiet. Doors close early. Children are pulled inside. The aswang is stronger. The tiktik is louder. The manananggal is hunting. Every Filipino knows this. But these beings are not what we were told they are. They are much older. And the reason they come alive during Holy Week reveals something most Filipinos were never taught. 📺 Watch next: They Were Gods, Not Fairies! The Sacred Power of Diwatas! — They Were Gods, Not Fairies! The Sacred Po... 🎥 Join my channel! — https://youtube.com/kirbyaraullo/join 🔔 Subscribe — http://goo.gl/yDgQmK 🍿 Be my Patron — Patreon: kirbynoodle 📚 Books, merch, etc. — https://www.kirbyaraullo.com/books 🌐 Website — www.kirbyaraullo.com 📌 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Why the Philippines goes quiet every Holy Week 01:29 Why are the aswang and manananggal stronger during Semana Santa? 04:15 What are the different creatures across Philippine regions? 06:58 What is the difference between the manananggal, tiktik, and mangkukutud? 09:40 What were these beings before colonialism turned them into monsters? 12:15 What does "yawa" actually mean in Bisayan cosmology? 15:08 How were Philippine gods demonized during colonization? 16:53 Why the indigenous spiritual world was never fully erased ☀️ ABOUT THIS VIDEO: This video explores why the oldest beings in Philippine mythology are believed to grow stronger during Holy Week. It traces the aswang, manananggal, tiktik, mangkukutud, and other regional creatures across the Visayas, Kapampangan, Mindanao, and Northern Luzon traditions — examining how dozens of distinct indigenous cosmologies were flattened into a single category of "monsters." It uncovers what these beings actually were before colonialism: ancestral spirits, forest guardians, and deities like the Bisayan yawa and the Kapampangan Mangkukutud. And how the words around them were changed through centuries of Christianization. It also examines the living practices that activate during Holy Week: the anting-anting recharged on Good Friday, the mananambal healers of Siquijor on Mount Bandilaan, the albularyo lineage tracing back to the babaylan, and the Kapampangan pabasa chanted in the form of the pre-Hispanic tagulele. This is the history of precolonial Philippine spirituality that survived inside the most sacred weekend of the Catholic calendar. ☀️ ABOUT KIRBY: Kirby Araullo is a Filipino American historian and educator whose work focuses on precolonial Philippines, indigenous political systems, Southeast Asian maritime networks, and anti-colonial resistance. Through research, teaching, and digital storytelling, he explores how the archipelago was organized, connected, and sovereign long before Spanish colonization.