“Ara na, ara na si Diablita
Ang malain nga kontrabida
Sunog diri, sunog didto
Bomba diri, bomba didto.”
-a Talisaynon nursery rhyme
Years before Stan Lee created Spider-Man and the X-Men, years before Japan introduced their Super Sentai and Kamen Riders, and years before Mars Ravelo’s Darna and Captain Barbel wowed the Filipinos, there was a story of a superhero in Negros that could have been as epic. For a certain reason, however, such story was nearly forgotten.
In the early 1920s, at the height of the American occupation of the Philippines, a certain terror menaced the once peaceful town of Talisay, a town next to Bacolod in the north. Children were reported missing, some people found dead, houses randomly exploding, and wide sugar cane fields engulfed by fires in a single night. The Talisaynons called it a plague. It was a problem not just for the common people but also for the local authorities - the Insular Government, which was by then training the country for the eventual true independence.
The name of the terror was Diablita. Or that’s what the people called her when she was accidentally spotted by three people doing her atrocities. Dressed in a tattered black cloak and masked with the skull of a deer with notable horns, Diablita created a hellish image, hence, earning her the name. A female diablo, yes, with her flowing long hair behind the mask. Much like a villain for the superheroes in the years to come while those were the days when comics were not yet available.
In December 25, 1924, Christmas Day, the porch of Don Felipe Gaston exploded killing his eldest son Jose Gerardo and three American visitors. Martha, a maid of the family, testified that she had seen a lady in black with a weird mask running out of the gate after the tragic explosion. “Kahaladlukan! She has horns!”
Two months after the Gaston Mansion incident, the sugar canes near reaping in Hacienda Lacson were burned to nothing. Don Rafael Lacson almost got mad after announcing the amount of his losses. The supposed sugar was for export to America once processed. “There was a woman…a skull for her face…she ignited the farm that night…she got away when I was chasing her.”
A series of murders happened from then on until the end of the year. Robert Davids, 29, was found dead in Matab-ang River with his penis missing. The same fate happened to the soldier Joseph Redford, 34, found rotten in a canal. The authorities suspected that the murderer had, somehow, a grudge with the ‘kano’ or the Americans. But they doubted about that when a Filipino, Roman Magbanua, was found dead in Dos Hermanas.
The worst was with the children. While the murders were happening, some boys and girls of ages six and below were reported missing. One notable missing was Francisco ‘Isko’ Locsin, the son of the haciendero Don Generoso Locsin. Isko’s yaya was preparing his milk one night when he was abducted. “She has long hair…and a mask…a mask with horns like that of an usa.” The nanny said she tried to run after the mysterious woman. “She vanished with a white smoke!”
“How ruthless! Not satisfied with killing the men…and now our kids!”
“Protect our children! Our children should be accompanied by either of the parents in going to school and they should be home by 5pm.”
“God save us! May He stop Diablita’s evil and give justice to all of us.”
From a distance, Diablita herself was listening like an omnipotent goddess. “Fools!” She looked at the mirror and studied her face, her beautiful 18-year old face. “How dare you call this beauty diabolical. I am not the demon! Those Americans are YOUR DEMONS! They promised us freedom but they have become worse than those damn Spaniards!”
Who the hell was Diablita? Why did she commit such terrible crimes? Let’s find out at the end of this story. For every villain, however, there’s always a hero. In this case, a heroine.
When Jose Gerardo Gaston was killed by an explosion in their porch in Christmas of 1924, he left his fiancée Ma. Ezperanza Lizares grieving so much. They were supposed to be married the next year. Bitter about her loss, she silenced herself in her room and cried and cried and cried until she ran out of tears. She poured all her misery to the sepia photograph of her late grandmother.
“I can’t take this anymore, lola. Evil has once again plagued this land, like those Spanish invaders that you fought along with Aniceto Lacson. Someone killed my dear Gerardo…a woman they call Diablita.”
It went on for months. Ezperanza had been so close to her grandmother who took part in the revolution in 1898. Her grandmother raised her when her parents were managing a business of their family in the nearby province of Iloilo. In 1913, when Ezperanza was only 12 years old, her grandmother Ma. Sonia Lizares passed away from tuberculosis. She left her granddaughter her scapular and her sharp binangon, the memoirs of the war that gave the province temporary freedom until the Americans took over. “The wars will not stop until this land is cleared from foreigners. I leave you these, Ezperanza. One day, you will use them too. One day, you will use them in your own war.”
Hearing the consecutive piling crimes of the notorious masked criminal in town, Ezperanza was roused and became more furious. She tried to forget her melancholy and moved on. She wanted to avenge her beloved Gerardo. She wanted to stop the so-called female devil that was menacing her beloved town.
In August 15, 1925, on the same night that Roman Magbanua was being killed by his kumpadre for a misunderstanding in a cockfight, Ezperanza swore upon his grandma’s picture that she was going to stop the plague. She opened her grandma’s baul and found the clothes she used to wear. She put on the scapular and held the sharp blade proudly. “My war has come, lola. This is my war against the devil.” And to be fair against her enemy, Ezperanza wore her own mask, an old sack with two holes for the eyes.
The lost children were miraculously returned one by one. The prayers of the people were answered.
“I was scared at first, Mama. But she untied me, then we left that dark place.”
“She freed me from Diablita! A woman wearing a dress with a scapular just like lola. She has a binangon…”
“She fought Diablita! I heard them fighting. Then she rescued me.”
The murders were also reduced. Diablita’s efforts resulted to mere attempts.
“We have a heroine at last!” confirmed Walter Hartman who was saved from the clutches of Diablita. He reported to the public how a masked woman with a sharp blade fought his supposed murderer.
“A heroine disguised as a katipunera!”
“It must be the great Sonia Lizares who fought along with Aniceto Lacson two decades ago. She’s back from the dead! She came back to free us once more from the horror of this wicked monster.”
And so the Talisaynons believed it was the ghost of Ma. Sonia Lizares who was fighting for them. Ezperanza never thought that her grandma was a legend. When the people barged in her house asking questions about her grandmother, she pretended innocent. She showed them her clothes and her scapular untouched in the wooden chest.
In her dark lair, Diablita was enraged. “Puta! How dare she ruin my plans!” So it seemed that her reign of terror was challenged. The people of Talisay forgotten their fear once more. When she tried to burn the sugar canes in Concepcion, the rumored Masked Katipunera was there and chased her away. The farmers were just in time to stop the fire. When she tried to bomb the newly renovated municipal hall, her nemesis was quick enough to move the explosives out of the building and into the empty field where it killed zero. “Puta! Puta! Puta!” Not to mention her kidnapped children always rescued and returned to their worried parents.
In November 1925, Diablita and the Masked Katipunera finally had a tête-à-tête.
“You merciless vermin! I will stop your madness right here, right now!” Esperanza pointed her blade at the enemy.
“Bitch! You will kill me for what? For those Americans I murdered? Pathetic! You will kill me for those imbecile barons offering our own sugar to the whites?! I AM NOT YOUR ENEMY!”
“I will give justice to those people you killed, those parents you worried by kidnapping their sons and daughters!”
“THEY DESERVE ALL OF IT! STUPID WHITE MEN CLAIMING WHAT IS NOT THEIRS! AND THOSE CHILDREN…THEY NEEDED PROPER EDUCATION…THEY MUST NOT ADMIRE THOSE DIRTY PIGS WITH WHITE ASSES!”
“You are a threat to the Talisaynons! And I will never, ever let you escape from here!” And Esperanza attacked Diablita full force.
The female devil, though, outwitted the Masked Katipunera again and escaped the scene leaving some kamangyan smoke.
The crimes of Diablita continued in the years that followed. She realized she needed to be in contact with the Masked Katipunera to know all her weaknesses. The rendezvous with her nemesis was just the beginning. In time, she managed to recruit some henchmen. Those guys were mostly oppressed farmers from those sugar barons who sold their precious sugar to America. They helped her burn the farms, bomb the houses, slay the whites. Nevertheless, the rate of crimes fluctuated at the same. Thanks to Ezperanza, the ghost of Sonia Lizares, the Masked Katipunera.
History tells us that in the early 1930s, The Great Depression was already beginning to take its toll in America. Companies closed, economy terribly affected. It was a good thing for the Filipinos, though. With Uncle Sam feeling some little poverty, the grip of America to the Philippines was beginning to loosen. The promised freedom was again ignited with hope. Somehow, Diablita was happy about it, about everything. Americans finally fleeing from Talisay, from the whole province, from the whole country. She felt responsible.
“I don’t understand, lola. I did everything. Why can’t I kill my own enemy? Why can’t I avenge my dear Gerardo? I minimized the crimes. I rescued the children. But the evil is still there and I want to end it. The Americans will be gone soon. I know that when it happens, that Diablita will cease to exist too. But that’s unfair! What about me? What about my vengeance?” Ma. Sonia Lizares’ old picture just stared blankly at Esperanza until it was stained with tears.
In 1934, the Tydings-McDuffie Act was finally passed, an act that provided the establishment of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. Independence was given at last to Juan dela Cruz. The next year, Manuel L. Quezon was elected president of the Commonwealth. In the Inauguration Day of Manuel L. Quezon, flyers were found scattering in the plaza of Talisay. Flyers that said, “Diablita, let’s end it tonight. Same place.” And the people knew it’s going to be the last battle. While they listened to the radios in their homes to the voice of the new president, they waited at the same time to the outcome of the fight between Diablita and the Masked Katipunera.
That midnight, at the mess of the incomplete bell tower of the renovated San Nicholas de Tolentino Church…
“Nice flyers, bitch!” Diablita greeted Esperanza. “But desperate.”
“You’re reign of terror ends tonight, Diablita!”
Diablita gave a high pitched laugh. It echoed down into the halls of the church. “My REIGN OF TERROR? Or you mean, my REIGN OF JUSTICE?”
“I have enough of you! Let me kill you so I may avenge my fiancé!”
“Haha! So it’s all about vengeance now, huh? Do you think it’s good? Vengeance? People worship you as their savior, their heroine. But you’re here to tell me, you’re not doing it for them? You’re doing it FOR YOURSELF?!”
“ENOUGH! I WILL CUT YOUR THROAT IF YOU---”
“Go on bitch! Cut me out…chop off my head, grind me to pieces…GO ON! Just like the last time…YOU WILL FAIL!”
“Not tonight. The Americans are gone. You don’t belong here anymore. Your war has ended.”
“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? KILL ME NOW!”
Ezperanza rushed towards Diablita with her very sharp binangon. She readied herself for that strike. It’s for Gerardo. The blade was sharpened with all her hate, with all her desire to stop the madness of Diablita. But her enemy was subtle. She was using a some kind of witchcraft that made her disappear in a wink of an eye. Diablita laughed with every failed thrust of the desperate Masked Katipunera.
“You witch! Why can’t I just kill you!”
Diablita materialized from the smoke. “I told you, you can’t kill me. I will live forever!”
“You killed Gerardo! You killed my beloved! You deserve to die!”
“WAKE UP BITCH! I DIDN’T KILL YOUR BASTARD FIANCE! YOU KILLED HIM YOURSELF!”
Esperanza wiped the tears flowing through her cheeks. “What?! What do you mean?”
“It was you who killed your lover, Esperanza. It was you! You hated him for making friends with those American soldiers! Haha…such hypocrite you are. We are the same all along. WE LOATHED THOSE DAMN WHITE MEN WHO OFFERED US TEMPORARY FREEDOM AT THE PRICE OF SILENT TYRANNY!”
“You’re lying! It’s not true!”
“You placed that bomb at the Gaston Mansion to kill Gerardo’s American friends. But you didn’t expect that he was also there at the porch. And he died along with those bastards. YOU KILLED HIM ESPERANZA! YOU KILLED YOUR BELOVED GERARDO THAT NIGHT! YOU KILLED HIM BECAUSE YOU HATE THE AMERICANS AS MUCH AS I DO. BECAUSE WE ARE THE SAME. BECAUSE WE ARE ONE!”
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Esperanza rushed towards Diablita for the last time. The laughing image of a woman wearing a black tattered cloak and a deer’s skull vanished when it met the blade. Esperanza, out of her rage and denial, didn’t realize that she was running at the edge of the platform. She fell from the height of 25 feet and when she hit the ground, the binangon that escaped her grasp as she fell pierced directly through her heart.
News spread fast the next day. It even reached Silay, Bacolod, and Bago. The famous Masked Katipunera of Talisay, the rumored ghost of the great Sonia Lizares, the heroine of the town, was found dead in the church grounds. And they found out her real identity at last. She’s none other than Ma. Esperanza Lizares, the granddaughter of Ma. Sonia Lizares. A few meters away from her corpse was the black cloak of Diablita and her infamous mask. No body of the criminal was ever found.
It rained that day as if the skies also lamented her death. The Talisaynons were anguished at the loss of their beloved heroine. The great plague was lifted by the sacrifice of such brave woman. They buried her body beside the tomb of her grandmother. The tomb was crowded with flowers everyday until, as time passed by, when the Republic had been established, the deeds of The Great Masked Katipunera faded in memory.
In 2002, Bong Lizares, 15 years old, was inspired by the story of her grandmother’s cousin retold to him by his uncle in a family reunion. An avid fan of Marvel and DC Comics, he made sketches of his amazing grandma and her arch nemesis, Diablita. Later on he submitted his work to a local publisher, a 50-page graphic novel entitled, ‘THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERSONIA’.