Whispers in the Dark
- JP de la Rama
- 4 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Why Our Folklore Deserves to Live Again
“Culture doesn’t die when it’s forgotten—it dies when no one chooses to tell its stories again.”
Setting the Stage
When I was a kid, my father used to tell me stories at night—not bedtime stories with happy endings, but tales meant to keep me from wandering around after dark.
Stories of duwendes hiding in tall grass, manananggals flying at midnight, tikbalangs watching from the forest, kapres smoking under old trees, and the constant reminder to say “tabi apo” whenever you passed somewhere unfamiliar.
Strangely enough, I wasn’t scared.
I was fascinated.
I remember lying awake, wondering:
If they’re real, why can’t I see them?
If they’re not, why do they feel so alive in my imagination?
That mystery—that thin line between belief and doubt—is the magic of folklore.
And looking back now, I realize those stories were doing something important: they were quietly tying me to my roots.
What We’re Losing Without Realizing It
Fast forward to today, and I see a different world through my daughter’s eyes.
She’s five. Bright. Curious. Constantly glued to kids’ shows online. And while some are fun, a lot of them are… let’s be honest—empty.
Loud colors.
Endless noise.
Even AI-generated content that feels hollow and soulless.
When I try to tell her about our own myths—our cryptids, our folklore—she shrugs it off like it’s outdated trivia.
And I can’t fully blame her.
Because here’s the hard truth: we don’t have enough modern mediums telling our stories.
Western media dominates. Japanese anime dominates. Even Korean pop culture dominates. Capitalism amplifies whatever sells fastest—and our own myths get buried under algorithms and trends.
As artists, storytellers, and creators, that should worry us.
Because stories aren’t just entertainment.
They shape identity.
They anchor culture.
They tell future generations where they came from.
Without a living medium—comics, animation, games, films—our folklore fades into footnotes.
Forgotten.
Reduced to trivia instead of living myth.
Creating the Stories We Wish Existed
This is where artists like us come in.
If the stories don’t exist in modern form, we have to create them.
Not to compete with Western or Asian media—but to stand beside them with our own voice.
Our own symbols.
Our own monsters.
Folklore doesn’t need to stay stuck in dusty textbooks.
It can evolve.
A duwende can exist in a graphic novel.
A manananggal can haunt animation screens.
A tikbalang can become a modern anti-hero.
As artists, we don’t just draw for likes or clients—we preserve identity through imagination.
And maybe, just maybe, when my daughter grows up, she won’t just recognize Spider-Man or anime characters.
She’ll recognize our monsters too—not as outdated myths, but as stories reborn through art.
Because culture only dies when no one tells its stories anymore.
And I refuse to let ours disappear quietly.
Final Thought:
If we want future generations to know who they are, we must show them—one story, one panel, one frame at a time.
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