Ep. 174: Superstitions Some Filipinos Still Believe

Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you work with Filipino workers. This is episode 174, superstitions that some Filipinos Still Believe. So we have superstitions in the US don't walk past a black cat. Or the number 13 is bad luck, which you see everywhere. Like most high rise buildings don't have a floor. 13, Friday the 13th is talked about all the time. Or the superstition, don't walk under a ladder. I don't know if in your culture you hear superstitions quite a bit. I do where I live because we have so many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who serve missions for the church and they serve them around the world, and so then they come back and tell stories. So some of these superstitions that Julia talks about here did not surprise me one bit when I served in Brazil. When I was on a mission in Brazil, I saw superstitions. I saw bunches of superstitions. One of them was people believe if you put a 2 liter bottle of water on top of your electric box, your electric meter, it'll lower your electric bill. And there's no basis for it other than they said that they did it and it lowered their bill. So here's what Julia says about superstitions in the Philippines. Even though a lot of us aren't that superstitious anymore, it's deeply rooted in our culture here in the Philippines. Take the greeting we use when we enter someone's home, Taupo. When you enter a Filipino's home, we use the traditional greeting taupo as we're knocking on the door. Taupo literally means I'm a person. It's a habit. We don't really think much about it when we say it, but we use this greeting because of the pre colonial pagan belief that elemental creatures walk among us. They play tricks like hiding your things or knocking on your door. Saying taupo is reassuring the homeowner that we're humans, not spirits. We also believe these elemental creatures live in large old trees, rocks and mounds of earth. So it's considered good manners to say tabi, tabi po. Excuse me when you pass by places with them. Announcing your presence shows that you respect these creatures so they stay out of your way. If you fail to do this, the creatures can curse you. Everybody has a story about how one of their family members got sick because they weren't polite to the spirits. So being rude to just to spite them isn't worth it. I don't believe this, she says, I don't believe this. But I still say tabi, tabi po because I don't want to risk it. Superstition is even a cottage industry in the Philippines. In front of a lot of churches, you'll find fortune tellers and faith healers. You'll see people selling folk medicine, talisman and charms beside rosaries, candles and religious statues. Some places even showcase these beliefs as part of their tourism campaigns. Obando, a municipality in Bulacan, which is like 20 kilometers from Manila, is renowned for its Anitas fertility festival. Childless couples dance in a procession every May to honor Tagalog fertility gods and Catholic saints. It's said that they will grant you a child if you offer chicken eggs to the church altar for the saints and dance with all your heart for the deities. Mark, who is one of our developers, is from Siquijor. Siquijor is a magical island because of how prevalent witchcraft and traditional heal are. People flock there to get their fortunes told for healing or to hex people. This practice is so widespread, you can even buy love potions and folk remedies as souvenirs. Super interesting. That's the end of what Julia wrote. So super interesting. Some of the things that people do, some of the things that people believe, and you know, maybe there's some truth to some of it. Even, you know, different cultures. It's always interesting to me every time I go to a different place and I find things that I didn't believe were true before, but then I see it in practice and reality. So I'm not going to say that all of these things aren't true or that they're just superstitions and silly, silly people believing silly things, but some of it does seem pretty far fetched to me.