I remember during the time when radyo baktas was the only source of local news in our town. As usual, anchored by rumormongers who spread news fast like lightning. One of the news they helped spread like wildfire was about a boy who was allegedly attacked by a dreadful sigbin. It was told that one morning the poor boy was found in the coconut field already blue and black on one side and very pale on the other side. The lifeless body seemed to be half-emptied of its blood. When inspected, punctured bite marks were allegedly found on the foot of the child. Everybody was easily convinced the child was attacked by sigbin. Because of this news, people panicked and parents nervously rushed to gather their children and kept them in their houses. When outside was already dark, nobody wanted to go out, not even the grown-ups. Electricity was not yet around in this municipality. Thus, after sunset, the outdoors is very dark. When it's dark, you can vividly imagine the grimy news.
In the 70s and 80s (even in the early 90s), if you truly came from Inopacan, you must have heard the old story about the dreaded witch in Sitio Bacungbacung of Brgy. Linao who kept a sigbin as a pet. People in town thought sigbin was a diabolic creature that obeyed whatever its master had commanded to do. When untethered and released by the witch, or allowing it to go outside, this sigbin is expected to perform a scary demonic attack on unsuspecting prey in the darkness of the night. Normally, during the daytime, the master would tether this hideous pet in a secret room and hide it in a cage covered with a dark cloth.
It was told sigbin was a nocturnal being; it slept in the daytime and was wide awake by night. It crept out of the cage and could easily pass through the smallest hole or recesses in the wall as if it had no bones and could jump high over the bushes in the field, agile and moving swiftly around. It would never face forward. The structure of the body is comparably similar to that of a kangaroo having a pair of muscular big hind legs and two smaller upper limbs. When in a stationary position, it would keep its guard by bending its head down below its groin and peeping its behind through in between its muscular thighs as if it was viewing the world upside-down. It has two very big round eyes, the size of a platito (small dish plate). It would seldom blink. The eyes would keep on staring toward the back and the sigbin would slowly move backward and sideward if it needed to adjust the direction of its sight. When disturbed, it would quickly straighten up to a standing position and hop like a big kangaroo - the big hind legs would quickly kick the ground while the front limbs clutched its breast. In a split second, sigbin is gone fast. So quick that the human eye could not have a glimpse of it. Instantly, it’s gone to nowhere.
What made sigbin dreadful was the rumor that it could be used when taking reprisal against those who had disappointed, offended, humiliated, or scorned the witch. The consequence would be so frightening. One time, when the night was over, people heard morning news from the radyo baktas that somebody mysteriously died of bite marks with all the blood sucked out dry.
Terrified. Yes, I was terrified listening to this story while I was a little boy in Inopacan. My nanay sternly reprimanded me and my sister if we happened to be not within our mother’s sight. The traumatic alarm would last weeks before the situation mellowed down and returned to normal.
During my early teens, I had this unforgettable experience. It was when I saw Nising and his siblings (the children of Mr. William Cabigas, a carpenter whose house was on a lot between the two old wooden bridges of the Inopacan River, about a hundred meters away from our land). They hurriedly gathered towards the bamboo grove on the side of our land after they noticed a strange commotion in the undergrowth surrounding the kagingking (a species of thorny and sturdy bamboo). Feeling concerned because the kagingking was in our land, I approached and asked what they were up to. I was told they were chasing a skinny sigbin hiding in the thicket under the kagingking grove. Nising and his siblings were armed with tirador (rubber sling) with pebbles as their pellets or their kind of ammunition ready for firing at the suspected sigbin. Though a bit shaky, I was urged to help them catch the sigbin. I thought anyway that it was just a skinny creature and perhaps our number could overpower this hideous being. I picked a big stick as my choice of weapon (no other choice actually). We surrounded the kagingking making sure the sigbin could not escape. The kagingking suddenly became under our siege. Then all of a sudden, there was a freaking shout from somebody telling us that he saw the sigbin. The rest of us rushed to gather at his side to help him attack the sigbin. But when we got there, the creature was nowhere to be found; it managed to slip and escape through the side that we abandoned. We gave a chase through the coconut and banana field. But the sigbin was fast and gone far beyond our sight. In between our gasping breaths, we admitted we lost it.
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The kagingking grove is still there until now. Last year, when I made a round of tours on our land along the side of the Inopacan River, I was refreshed by the incident when I passed by at the same spot where we gathered around to hunt the sigbin. The thought gave me goosebumps on my neck and arms. Thanks and the underbrush where we chased the sigbin is no longer that thick now. The big-eyed demon may not be hiding there for sure. But still, I had that tingling sensation of panic on what if the sigbin was no longer skinny but stronger and ready to plunge at me this time. Bah, I quickly changed my imagination and simply entertained the thought that the sigbin is already old after all the years and too weak to stage a stupid attack.
Until then, I never actually saw the sigbin. Whatever they were chasing, I hope it was not the real thing because they described it as a small creature that ran like a dog with a scary face and it already lost most of its body hair. I had in my mind that it could have been a sickly stray dog or chupacabra, a bloodsucker considered by locals as the cousin of sigbin. There were reported cases in the Philippines where chupacabra attacked fowl, pigs, and other farm animals. Besides, talking about chupacabra here is another story.
Despite my experience, I’m not sure if sigbin is real. Perhaps our folks were too quick to jump to conclusions by merely judging the situation on sketchy and dubious assumptions. There was no factual basis. Some say that our parents invented the story so the children would not wander around, especially at night. Hmm, sounds like psychological warfare, a traumatic story used in disciplining the young ones.
I never heard that there was a follow-up investigation conducted by the authorities on the alleged sigbin that killed a boy.
Years later, while I was in college, I learned from a reliable source that there was this group from VISCA (Visayas State College of Agriculture in Baybay, Leyte) who tried to gather factual information about the sigbin for a sort of special study. They even offered a hefty sum of money to those who could bring them a real sigbin (dead or alive) for documentation. Until now, there’s no news if they already found one. It is the same group who tried to search for the species of fabled nangka (jackfruit) that would bear fruits underground.
I browsed through the video clips on YouTube but only found a dubious and fake movie of sigbin instead.
Now tell us your story about the sigbin in our town?
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