“Sa ngalan ng Ama, at ng Anak, at ng Espiritu Santo. Amen.” 

Malaya was afraid to move. Each sway and shift on the creaky kneeler made her self-conscious that the other parishioners would see how her hands were clasped and how focused she seemed and how holy she looked. 

Every second of pin-drop silence was more than deafening—it was suffocating. It made the rays of light that streamed from the stained glass windows bleed a little more red. It made the scent of old bibles and snuffed out incense sting her nose. It made the unblinking stares of the statues pierce into her skin and into her heart and weigh down her gut. It made her afraid to move.

Despite the kneeler appearing like a soft cushion awaiting an eager devotee, the padding and cloth had flattened after spectating countless prayers. But Malaya only felt the creaky wooden bar underneath the cushioning and how it dug into the nook between her knee and her shin. If she shifted, her knees would creak along with the wood beneath her; so she constricted every muscle into place, making sure she was perfectly still. What better way to show devotion than hands clasped so tightly, and knees dug so deeply, that your fingertips draw blood and your knees never learn to stand again?

To the right of her was her Tatay and to her left, her Nanay—both kneeled uniformly in position with every other worshiper in the church, along with Malaya herself. Except, they looked different than how Malaya felt. Their eyes were tightly shut in prayer, accentuating the valleys of their crow’s feet. Their brows furrowed in concentration of their words rather than of their body. Unlike Malaya, their concentration wasn’t matched with drops of sweat, slowly beading on her forehead. If it weren’t for their soundless, moving lips, any other parishioner would think they were yet another sculpture in the chapel with how long they had been attempting to speak to their God. 

“…ako sa Diyos…sa lahat, na…

…naman ako …Anak ng…

…ni Ponsio Pilato…sa langit…

…Amen.”

Malaya spent every Sunday stealing glances at them while they prayed. Every so often she could hear the breathless muttering, their words simultaneously recognizable and still yet unintelligible. 

“Ama Namin…ang ngalan mo…

…ang loob mo dito…araw-araw…

…kami sa…amin, At huwag…

…Amen.”

They always said their prayers in Tagalog—a memento of their strict Catholic upbringing in the Philippines—despite going to a majority white, English-speaking church in the States. Since moving to America, they incessantly pestered Malaya about being ignorant to Filipino culture and customs, yet neglected to even teach her the language. The extent of her Tagalog being ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘thank you,’ and ‘freedom’—Malaya, her namesake. Still, she didn’t need to understand their words to know exactly what they prayed for: for the family to avoid sickness and affliction. For Nanay and Tatay to get promotions and raises. For Ate and Kuya to have good grades.

“Aba Ginoong Mari…ng grasiya…

…babaeng lahat…si Hesus…

…Santa Maria…Ngayon at…

…Amen.”

Malaya wondered what she should ask God for. For a sign of him existing at all? No, she’d been praying for that for as long as she can remember. For health, prosperity, good grades? No, her parents were already praying for that, and they were far more faithful than her. For her to not be bored in church? Hah, now that would be a miracle. 

Frozen in place with the same old ecclesiastic scenery to look at, Malaya’s eyelids grew heavy. But of course, any sign of sleep from her would earn an impassioned scolding from Nanay and a smack on the back of the head with the tsinela when they got home. 

She needed to stay awake. She scrunched her eyes. She raised her eyebrows. She scrunched her eyes again.

When she opened her eyes,her curious gaze landed on the statue of the Virgin Mary, who mirrored Malaya’s sleepy expression, and she decided on a game to keep her awake. Malaya blinked hard, scrunching them one more time. She stared at the statues’ leaden lids and kept her eyes open…

and open…

and open…

and open…

…and she blinked. 

Tears welled up—her body’s response to her dried, strained eyes. God, she would rather be caught dead than caught crying in church. More importantly, she will be caught dead if tears travel down her face and if she moves to wipe them off before her parents finish praying. Willing each saline pearl back into her tear ducts, she squinted and scrunched her face until her lips nearly touched the button of her nose. 

“Umiiyak ako sapagkat nakita kong natupad na ang malaong kong pinangingilagan, na tatangap kayo ng mga taong taga ibang lupa maputi ang ngipin, mahahabang barong na tila alampay.”1

Malaya’s face fell flat. She was dumbfounded, her heart skipping a beat. She turned to Tatay. Then to Nanay. Both were frozen in time— their lips did not move nor did their chests exhale for air. Her pupils dilated. Her eyes bounced around the room. She tightened the grip of her praying hands. No one else existed in this chapel except her and the Voice.

“I weep to see the completion of what I expected for many years, Malaya,” The Voice was cacophonous in the silence of the church.2 It rang out with the strength of hundreds of reverberations, hitting the tall church ceilings. It made Malaya want to nauseously sway like a trapped hammer inside a bell. Each resonance was in a different language—every dialect of the Philippine regions, and she still could not isolate any intelligible words except for the ones in English. But it didn’t matter. Somehow, she knew every other language spoken came from the same place. She knew each utterance held the same disgust and disappointment in their syllables. She knew she should be ashamed that she could only understand the voice of her subjugator’s tongue. The intensity of it all made her afraid to move.

And yet, she felt compelled to slowly turn her gaze to the statue of Jesus. One of his hands was raised in blessing and the other, touching his heart—both of them had wounds that speared through his hands. A solar crown framed his head, not crackling or sputtering, but radiating waves of smelting heat as he looked ahead to the congregation. 

“God?” Malaya’s voice was a weak, scratchy bird’s cry. She couldn’t tell whether it was the beads of her sweat or her tears cooling her cheeks. She willed her body to still completely, afraid the Apocalypse had begun and this was her Judgment Day. She had examined this statue a million times over from the thousands of bored masses she was dragged to, but there was something renewed about it this time. Its hands no longer seemed soft and anointing, but battle-hardened and commanding. The carved lacerations in its palms seemed to pool up with blood, just as Malaya’s tears pooled around her infidel eyes. Sweltering refractions radiated from its crown, smearing the biblical imagery that was seared into the stained glass windows.

“You ask for a higher power, yet you kneel here and pray to false idols,” The Voice echoed in the chapel, coming from the statue in an overwhelming hum of voices. “Ako ay si Apolaki. I am the god that your ancestors shed blood for.”

Apolaki. The god of the sun that flies on the motherland’s flags, the patron of the warriors that resisted the colonizer’s gun, the king of the earth that he and his moonlit sister liberated eons ago. Apolaki. The god that Malaya’s ancestors had shed blood for — the god that she had forgotten. That her people abandoned.

“Malaya dela Cruz… you, of the cross. You would welcome some foreigners with white teeth and hooded heads, who would implant amidst your houses crossed poles to torment me all the more. I was forced to leave your people for those who would follow me, for you have abandoned me, your ancient lord, for foreigners.”2

His words echoed and echoed and echoed in her head. They pierced her skin and strained her heart and weighed down her gut. Her nose stung and her cheeks began to burn. Silent sobs escaped her body. Each gasp that she drew from her blasphemous lungs, and each heretic tear that burnt everything it touched felt like sacrilege. Treason. Desecration.

The bones of her wrists were glued to the pew in front of her and her palms and fingers felt sewn together. But she couldn’t bear the onslaught of words; she slouched onto her calves, let herself choke on each tear, and wept into her chest. Her ears buzzed amidst the divine ringing. Her thoughts were consumed by overwhelming remorse. Grief. Heartache. 

“Anak, let yourself mourn,” The Voice was no longer vehement, but resolute and exhortative. 

She looked back up. It was no longer Apolaki speaking. The statue that he reclaimed for himself had ever so slightly dimmed, though never surrendering its full presence. As if a hand cupped her cheek and guided her eyes, she turned her attention to the Virgin Mary statue. The stale expression of the mother of Jesus had become hopeful and her outstretched hands were no longer a sign for an embrace, but a sign for bestowing abundance. Through the half open lid of her eyes, one shone a bright silver that washed out the cornflower blues of the statue’s robes. The other was a void of black. 

“Your agony is a millennium of ancestors who await salvation,” Malaya’s tears were no longer candle wax that made her skin fester; they flowed like the rivers and waterfalls and oceans that her predecessors navigated with nothing but the stars. “Your agony will be your revolution. Ako ay si Mayari. My name carries the moon and the uprising of the night that takes over my brother, Apolaki. My name carries deliverance.”

Malaya was exhausted from her shame and guilt.

“Anak, your parents chose your name to be like mine. Malaya—Freedom. Your name carries with it the call to achieve your justice and the dreams of your ancestors. Your name is liberation.” Mayari’s voice sang with clarity, her voice like an undercurrent, stealing Malaya away into an ocean that would engulf every limb of Malaya’s body for eternity. A riptide of heartache made her fingers go numb, but offered an endless gentle push and pull of high and low tides that would never be touched by storms or drought or poverty or greed. She offered a way out. She offered deliverance. She offered liberation. Every pore in Malaya’s body yearned to accept.

Malaya had an eternal moment to espouse generations of treason and guilt and grief she was unknowingly carrying in her heart. The tendons in her legs softened, the clasp of her hands loosened, and the weight in her gut was lightened. She wanted to reach out and accept Apolaki and Mayari’s unsaid offer. 

Dissonance. Metal scraped the floor in a sudden crash. Malaya snapped her head to the back of the chapel to see an altar boy picking up the fallen sanctus bells. She turned her head back to the statue—she had no time for distractions, she needed to hear what her gods had to say. The voices had stopped. No. No, no no no no. Malaya wanted to hear more—she knew there had to be more.

“Putangina. These new altar boys are a disgrace to the church,” Tatay grumbled, his words sharp and unforgiving. It tormented Malaya to fight back the urge to say the same thing about the foreigners with white teeth and hooded heads. Letting out a defeated sigh, he and Nanay took the noisy disturbance as their sign to finish praying. They sat back up on the pew and collected themselves. Tatay checked his pockets for his wallet, and Nanay put her rosary into her purse. They stood up after their prayers, eager and ready to eat lunch with their friends like they did every Sunday. They contemplate the phở options near the church.

Malaya kept staring at the statues. Her fingertips felt as if they had been drawing blood and her knees felt as if they would forever be locked in place. She wanted to hear more. She needed to hear more. She shut her eyes, and bowed her head into her chest, waiting for the Jesus and Mary statues to reveal themselves again. 

“Ay! Malaya, anak!” Nanay was astonished at the sight of her daughter worshiping so piously. Yet, she beamed with pride—Malaya had finally begun to take her worship seriously. “It must be an act of God!”

1. Los, Reyes y Florentino, Isabelo de, et al. Ang Diablo SA Filipinas Ayon Sa Nasasabi Sa Mga Casulatan Luma Sa Kastila. ANVIL Publishing Inc., 2014. 

2. Translation from: De Guzman, Daniel. “Devils in the Philippines: From

Demonization to Abandonment” THE ASWANG PROJECT, 3 June 2022, www.aswangproject.com/devils-philippines-demonization-abandonment/.