Welcome to Biringan

Who here has heard of the place called Biringan City? I suggest you search for it online if you haven't.

I remember when I was just 12 years old, there was a time when I joined my aunt's medical mission in a certain hard-to-reach town in a certain province. Since I was the only kid in the group, I was quiet at first. I got bored quickly as soon as we got to the site, since there was nothing to do for me to entertain myself. I regretted that I didn't even get to bring along my Game Boy, which was still popular then, with me.

However, it wasn't long before I got to know some kids in the area, and one of them was Dino. Well, his name sounded like that, I think. Anyway, let's just go with that.

I believe it was around 4:30 or 5 PM when he and his friends invited me to go to the river with them, since it was near his place.

Of course, being young, curious, and not having that many chances to go near a clean river because of being a city boy, I agreed to go with them in a heartbeat.

After some walking, the four of us soon reached the river. There, we swam for a while, and also chased and teased each other. It was lots of fun.

We soon got tired, and so we decided as a group to return home. I was also worried that maybe my aunt was already trying to look for me. After all, I was a visitor to the area and unfamiliar with it.

It was twilight then, or the time of day that they describe as darkness and light fighting each other. We were already walking along the riverbank when we noticed that we seemed to go back to parts that we have passed by before.

For one, there was this anthill or termite mound that we were sure we have seen before, as it had exactly the same appearance.

Being a visitor, I was only a bit confused as to what was happening. However, my companions began to feel afraid and worried, and they talked about something in their local dialect, so I couldn't understand what was going on.

Worried, I asked Dino, saying, "Why aren't we going home yet? I'm already tired and hungry, and I think my aunt may be looking for me right now."

He told me, "Don't be so noisy. Just make sure you're behind us and don't stray too far."

So we continued our walk forward, still going along the riverbank until we saw some lights in the distance. We thought we were near home, so we went straight towards those lights.

I remember when we arrived at the spot; we saw a lot of old-school houses. Like, Spanish occupation architecture. But the difference here was that these buildings had electricity, and you could see the lights from a distance.

There were lights on the street, and the path itself wasn't made of concrete or asphalt, it was made of bricks. We also saw a procession for something, but we couldn't see any figures of saints being carried anywhere. There were just people with old-style clothing, like baro't saya and barong Tagalog.

Sorry if the description isn't very good, it's already a little blurred in my memory.

I was amazed by everything that we saw around us, so I didn't quite notice that my companions were already scared and trembling at the sight in front of us. They started running away, so I, being confused by what was going on, moved to catch up with them.

We ran and ran, so I almost didn't notice that there were men with flashlights calling out to us.

My aunt was with them, and when she ran to me, she was crying. She then hugged me tightly and asked multiple times if I was okay or if I got hurt in any way. I said that I was okay, just a little chilly because my clothes were wet.

Now this is the most confusing part, or maybe the creepiest one, depending on how you view it:

My aunt and the other people with her told us that we have actually gone missing for 24 hours. Because of that, they went to the town hall and the police precinct to report us as missing.

They asked me where we went off to, and I replied, "We just swam in the river, then went on our way home. But we got lost because the path took us in circles."

The Barangay Chairman then told me to tell them the full details, so I did. My three companions, however, didn't want to say anything.

After that, the Chairman told my aunt and the volunteers that the place I saw was actually THE Biringan City, or the city that appears and disappears. He added that we were lucky that we weren't taken by the people who lived there.

The whole time we were walking home, I wondered how it all happened. How could we have been gone for a day when I felt like we were only away for a few hours?

I was already in college when I started researching about it, and now I know what happened to us that night. I now also have an awareness of the mystery that surrounds Biringan City.

But those details are for another time and possibly another storyteller to share.