The Forgotten Dark Tales of Negros

The Roses in the Garden of Rosa Jalandoni

There was once a beautiful woman in Silay named Rosa Jalandoni. She was so beautiful that her suitors form a queue from her doorstep down to the main highway. And they were not just ordinary suitors. All the great men of Negros like sugar barons, politicians, and mestizos from direct Spanish bloodlines were among those who begged for her hand.

“Marry me, Rosa, and together we shall run my hacienda in Talisay,” said Joaquin Lacson, 28 years old, inherited his family’s 75-hectare sugar cane plantation.

“Will you be my first lady. Rosa Jalandoni?” offered Jose Luis Torres, 30 years old, recently elected Mayor of Bago.

“I am Juan Vicente Araneta y de Luzuriaga, son of Gregorio Jose Araneta y Ledesma and Maria Socorro de Luzuriaga y Hilado,” introduced a 27 year old suitor from Bacolod. “My family will be glad if I could take you home as my wife.”

So it seemed that the offers were substantial and whoever Rosa would choose was good enough. Joaquin, Jose Luis, and Juan Vicente, though, were just visitors in a single day. The next day, more would come with more offers.

But Rosa would not falter. She was 25 years old and never given her sweet ‘Yes’ to any man who courted her. It wasn’t that her parents were strict. She didn’t have a parent to begin with. She lived alone in her house a short walk away from San Diego Cathedral and her nearest relatives were said to be in Iloilo. She sold flowers in the church for a living. At the back of her house was a well tended garden of red roses.

When asked why her roses were the most beautiful in Silay, Rosa would say, “It’s because I’m beautiful.” Of course it was a joke. And then Rosa would continue, “Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe because I loved these roses more than anything in the world. More than anyone…”

In her diary entry dated September 6, 1915, Rosa wrote:

[“I had a hard time dealing with my suitors today. There was one who came from Cebu and I had to attend him longer for his efforts in coming over. There was an old man who recently lost his wife. There’s a doctor who said he would treat his patients for free if I could be his partner for life. And someone who is suicidal.

These men don’t know what I’m looking for. I don’t need their money, their names, their properties. It’s sad to say but these men who knock at my door every day are just wasting their time. There are other girls out there. Why me?

I don’t know what I’m looking for either. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life doing chores for a man. The thought of bearing a child scares me. I don’t want any man to ruin me. I don’t want to ruin myself.”]

Hence, the men never stood a chance. Everyday, after the men left Rosa Jalandoni’s house, they would end up in the pubs drinking liquor to forget their heartaches and miseries. There were two or three who were rumored to commit suicide. One lost his mind, tried to break in Rosa’s house but failed and was missing since then.

For years, Rosa gained fame by the name of La Rosa de Silay, the rose that stood above all others, the rose that no men could pluck. And it was said that whoever could win the heart of The Rose of Silay, that man shall be the luckiest in the world.

In July 1917, the Silaynons were disturbed of some shocking news. Within three weeks, four young men were found dead in different places within Silay. The authorities believed that there’s only one suspect in the crimes. Autopsies revealed that the men suffered hypovolemic shock. Or in layman’s words, they simply died due to severe loss of blood. The bodies didn’t show sources of bleeding other than the two holes on the neck of the victims. 

Obviously, only a vampire could be the culprit. But nobody thought of a vampire. In 1917, the people of Silay never heard of a vampire. A few aristocrats who were able to travel in Europe could suggest of the possibility. But none of those aristocrats cared of what’s happening in the lower society.