Urban Legends

Introduction to Philippine Urban Legend

Urban Legends (also known as Contemporary Legends) are modern folkloric stories or false information which affects the lives of peoples in a particular country where the said story was told. Not all urban legends are false, some of them came from real origination or the story itself is actually real. They became untrue once the story was outraged and exaggerated or added with excessive details.

The Philippine urban legend focuses on paranormal creatures, business competition strategies, historical figures, health issues, western influences, etc. These stories are similar to what Filipinos called as Kwentong Bayan, however in modernized way. Other names are Kwentong Kotsero (Driver's Tale), Kwentong Kalye (Street Tale), and Kwentong Barbero (Barber's Tale), which are often used to refer to stories of modern times. The main elements of these stories composed of supernatural events, others just heard or read from a foreign tale-tellers.

No doubt that the modern Filipinos still remember their traditional lower mythical creatures even they were influenced with western culture. Other example for that is the urban legend about the Manananggal in Tondo, the Sigbin as cure for AIDS, and the Ghost (White Lady) of Balete Drive. Those depicts traditional lower myths although in a modern setting and event.

The Proctor and Gamble's issue of being connected to a satanic organization which spread out from overseas to the whole country; the Romblon Triangle; the Alien Abduction; and Moviegoer scare are examples of western influences which made a large impact to Filipinos of this time. Taking this as an evidence of affection to the outside culture, make the Filipino more modernized.

These legends give cautionary effect to the people of what should they do to prevent going to that place and even buying that kind of product. But there are some legends which only give bad image to a company or to an individual person; some give meanings to why that person look like that of the famous one; and some just want to scare everybody. And because the country was composed of many different kinds of traditions and customs, every single group of ethnicity has there own urban legend.