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*I would like to remind everyone that this article was published using public information with links to public social media platforms. This is not an invitation for people to take their frustrations out on the accounts involved. Please use the article as an informational resource and do not involve yourself in criminal activity, such as coercive messages. That type of online activity is unacceptable and none of us should tolerate it. *
**Please note that a July 2021 update for this article has been included at the very end.
In this article, I have unfortunately been tasked with the duties of exposing 4 social media accounts that created this story and have been deliberately spreading false or inaccurate information with the intention to deceive. The beautiful love story between Bulan & Sidapa is fiction. Most of the scrutiny regarding the topic has been about documentation and research. Simply put, the story of Bulan and Sidapa did not exist in any beliefs or documentation until this past decade, where multiple blogs operated by the same person attempted to legitimize the fictional romance. It’s a troubling, infuriating, and fascinating social commentary.
Before I begin, I will note that I have reached out to all of the involved social media accounts in an attempt to give the person(s) an opportunity to clear up anything I may be misunderstanding. I don’t particularly enjoy presenting this exploration, but in the age of misinformation and historical revision, I also feel it is important for people to understand how this story (and others) spread so quickly and how the doubt remained. Hopefully, we can use this deliberate deception to learn and scrutinize the information we are presented with in the future. ASK FOR SOURCES! Even oral folk tales credit a storyteller or a particular ethnolinguistic group.
You’re going to have to stick with me through this article. It gets weirder and weirder as it goes along. I will admit that I had several moments of self doubt and until I had a firm grasp on who was spreading the misinformation, it was a daunting task.
Let’s look at the social media accounts involved, then I will talk about my experiences with them and how the story has spread.
There are 3 blogspot accounts and 4 Facebook accounts that are responsible for spreading this story. In the last two years there have also been new Tumblr accounts, YouTube Channels, Wattpad etc. All these accounts can be linked and I have no reason not to believe they are all the same person. While each blogspot account has several pages, I will include links to their blogs that are spreading the most misinformation. Prior to these blogs, these stories did not exist.
BLOGGER ACCOUNTS:
FACEBOOK ACCOUNTS
David Evangelista
Tanashiri Techibana
Archer Cruz Guevarra account has since been deactivated.
Jonathan Sy Dee
TANASHIRI TECHIBANA/ lights / visayandatu
I have been studying Philippine Mythology and Folklore since 2004. I am constantly learning new things and am always open to new material. When I launched The Aswang Project blog in 2015 I began accepting contributor posts. One of the people contributing was Tanashiri Techibana, going under a different name. They submitted an article on Visayan War Deities in February of 2016, but I soon received an email from another blogger, Luzviminda Philippines, who said that the content had been copied and pasted from their blog. I checked the blogs and sure enough this was the case. The lights blogs still exist with the copied content from Luzviminda Philippines blogs.
Another example:
Tanishiri Techibana and I had a few conversations on Facebook where they said they didn’t care about getting credit for the stories (that were copied and pasted). These conversations were also when I was introduced to the concept of the male binukot, Haliya’s golden mask in Bicolano Mythology and the Bulan and Sidapa love story. I asked Tanashiri about sources and they said they were oral, straight from the tribe. At that point, I conducted research and came up completely empty handed. I put a pin in it and carried on. I have since had conversations with researchers, folklorists, and historians – of which none have ever heard about the Bulan and Sidapa love story, nor the male Binukot. Oral folklore is definitely a reliable source, but the origin is generally carefully documented. Unfortunately I have recently seen oral folklore being used as an excuse instead of a source. Oral folklore does not explain the lack of documentation if the source of the oral tale has been properly noted.
Tanashiri Techibana shared some photos of what appeared to be a cosplay type photo shoot where they were dressed as Bulan and a ‘male binukot’.
This was the end of my interactions with Tanashiri Techibana.
DAVID EVANGELISTA/ damiendavid
The first time I saw an artistic interpretation of Sidapa and Bulan was in the online komik “Agla”, published on May 29, 2016.
I recently asked Kael Molo (creator of Agla) where he heard the story of Bulan and Sidapa. He mentioned that he came across a “poorly sourced blog” in 2013/14 when he was researching the Agla story. There is a blog post made by damiendavid in one of his blogs “indefinite transition of perceived realities” from November 23, 2013.
“Bulan ; he who is pale and has the appearance of an adolescent boy; child-like and playful descended from the heavens to save himself from Bakunawa. The young Bulan now accompanies the god of death Sidapa who was very lonely and has long admired the beauty of the moons. It is believed that Bulan lives to this day with Sidapa happily at on top of Mount Madia-as in the province of Antique.”
Oddly, the URL for the blog is “Alan Kuo English Songs”.
Like the blogger lights, it appears that damiendavid’s blogs are also filled with copied and pasted material or flat out false information. This makes things particularly frustrating for readers. Some of the copied articles are legit and can be sourced. Still, this leaves readers in a gray area between fact and fiction.
In a conversation on the Agla Facebook page, Kael Molo recently asked David Evangelista (damiendavid) about the source to the story. This is the response that was given.
“Hello Kael. Actually there is accounts recorded. It’s not just published popularly because of the Christian faith of the Philippines | also if your pertaining to my blog, i posted it for my kids, i never thought people would read it since most of the articles there ive written around 2009. Also Also i didnt post the sources since i wanted it to remain as the Visayans and Bikolanos wanted it to begin with Oral tradition, or oral lore,knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved and transmitted orally from one generation to another. about the other gods not being cited in other books, lets compare it to the aswang, or better kinnari a.. not so many records were in books. its a mythical creature beautiful, and elegant. nNo writtings are found in many books on the net. but the filipinos (Tagalog, Bikolano, Maranao and specially the Visayans believed in the kinnari). you as a Visayan should be proud your ancestor’s gods survived and have been revived my the youngsters who use the internet.”
The entire conversation can be read in the link below:
It’s clear from the various blogs run by damiendavid that they have an interest in Philippine Mythology, anime, and gay culture, as do the blogs of lights. In fact, these two bloggers share so many interests, and so much content that it can’t be ignored. I found David Evangelista’s statement about creating the blog for their kids a little odd since there are postings of porn (NSFW) throughout as well. It’s not my business how people raise their kids, but I found that reasoning strange given the content. Since the original publishing of this article, the comment regarding DE’s children was removed.
On July 10, 2017 an article was submitted to The Aswang Project talking about ‘LGBT culture in the pre-colonial Philippines’. In the article, there was a story where Malandok, the visayan god of war, fell in love with the seven moons and their beauty. He was forever unsuccessful in capturing one of them. Eventually, Libulan came to earth to accept the love of Malandok. He reached the place where the saltwater and freshwater mixed, but before Malandok held his hand to him but Sidapa (the god of death) intervened. Some believe Sidapa’s actions were out of jealousy and a fight between war and death occurred. The islands and seas shook until Sidapa emerged victorious. Malandok promised that he would return for Libulan. The moon god returned to the heavens waiting until the day Malandok’s promise will be fulfilled. It also stated that in some versions of the story, Libulan appeared on earth as the small boy, Bulan.
“In some versions of the story?” I wanted to find just ONE story where any of this was mentioned at all. I asked the person who submitted the article for a source. I was directed to the blog entries on “nightskylies” operated by damiendavid.
It’s not my place to quell fan fiction and artistic explorations in art, but this particular story began to occupy a huge amount of my time and resources answering questions from followers of The Aswang Project. This is when I first started seeing the modern story of Bulan and Sidapa appearing in blogs – particularly “lights” and “damiendavid”. The story goes like this:
Long ago the god of death resided alone on top his mountain. From his domain he saw the seven moons dancing. He admired the moons for their beauty and fell in love with them.
He realized that the other gods were also infatuated with the moons, such as Luyong Baybay (goddess of tides) who was singing to the moons.
To outperform the other gods, Sidapa asked the birds and mermaids to sing his endearments to the moons. He ordered the flowers to bloom and make sweet perfumes that would reach the heavens. Lastly he asked the fireflies to light a way so the moons could find their way to him…
One of the moons came down, it was the young boy Bulan. Sidapa showered the boy moon with gifts and songs .
One night, Bakunawa (the moon eating dragon who was also captivated by the beauty of the moons) rose from the sea. Sidapa saw this and quickly flew to the cosmos to snatch the boy Bulan before Bakunawa could devour him.
Sidapa saved Bulan from Bakunawa and it is said that they live together as lovers on top of Mt. Madjaas to this day.
Again, the story is from the same blogger (damiendavid) who admits there is no source for the material other than their blog – which was created for their kids. “Bulan/ Libulan” is mentioned no less than 171 times throughout their various blogs. This seems a bit excessive for only wanting to document a story for your kids. It is also extremely odd behavior to not give anyone a book title, oral source, or even another person who is familiar with the story.
Similar to my encounter with Tanashiri Techibana, David Evangelista tried to convince Kael, that he is enlightened with oral tradition that (apparently) nobody else on the planet can source. They eventually gave Kael a source, which turned out not to be true. I, as well as hundreds of others, own and have read the epics collected by Dr. Alicia Magos. None of them contain the love story between Bulan and Sidapa.
Since I first became aware of damiendavid’s blogs, the story of Sidapa and Bulan has continued to evolve and has even been deceptively backdated into older blogs. As an example, damiendavid has a blog titled “Auf Kurs” with a URL “Oomph Lyrics English”. Mysteriously, this blog contains nothing about the German band Oomph!, but is instead filled with Philippine Mythology, including the story of Bulan. ***Many of these older blog entries have been changed and removed since the publishing of this article***
JAPHERS:
Japhers was the first artist to popularize Bulan and Sidapa with a beautiful visualization. Since then, there has been many incredibly wonderful works of art created in honor of this story. I asked Japhers where he first heard about the Bulan & Sidapa relationship and he had the following answer.
“First off, I’ve known Sidapa vaguely from Indio, the GMA Show, but I’ve also known him from my friends who were looking up death gods for WicDiv fan characters, and have also drawn Persona-style art of Sidapa back in 2015, but when I look back I don’t think I’ve yet thought of Sidapa in the context of having Bulan as a lover back then!
Then I remembered seeing them represented in Agla- the Graphic Novel, but I distinctly remembered panicking because “wait Bulan here is represented as a young boy- very different from what I had remembered!” which suggests that by that time I did know about them from somewhere else! I’m still not sure where, though, because most of the articles I’ve encountered while looking them up all detailed Bulan as a young boy. I’m led to believe that someone may have mentioned them in passing and in turn I got excited and tried looking them up!
– Specifically for me researching on drawing the two, though, I was able to refer to a few posts: a Tumblr Graphic Post from feb 2016 which started me on the path to looking up more info on the two (https://durchartist.tumblr.com/post/139380509679/sidapa-and-bulan) as well as a few blog articles from earlier on in the year (http://ancientphilippinessotriesrealitymyths.blogspot.com/2016/08/bulan.html, http://lightsnostraad.blogspot.com/2016/01/sidapa-and-bulan_11.html).”
The links mentioned, as well as the source given in the durcharist Tumblr page are… guess who? damiendavid and lights.
What we seem to be left with are a lot of other people experiencing some sort of false memory syndrome due to repeated exposure to the story in their online community, or by simply wanting to believe it is real. I’ve heard all sorts of stories regarding Bulan and Sidapa. One artist swears the story was in a book – yet the book has vanished and they can’t recall the name of it. Another felt their parents had told them the story, yet their parents have no recollection of it. If the story of Sidapa and Bulan were part of precolonial Philippine beliefs, it would be an interesting focal point for the LGBTQIA+ movement. It is hard to let that go and a lot of people simply want to believe it. The story of Bulan & Sidapa creates a cultural footing in an environment that has been resistant to acceptance and equality. So we are left to choose between an understanding that it is not part of pre-colonial beliefs, or that damiendavid is the sole surviving holder of ancient tales.
ARCHER CRUZ GUEVARRA & JONANTHAN SY DEE
This is where things get weird. These two Facebook accounts came on to my radar sometime last year. It seems that every time the subject of Haliya and Bakunawa or Bulan and Sidapa comes up, they are both are commenting one after the other.
There was even an instance where Jonathan Sy Dee makes a comment, and Archer Cruz Guevarra responds with a David Evangelista quote.
The fact that these (likely fake) accounts are commenting together on Facebook really doesn’t mean anything, but I found it odd how quickly these two particular accounts responded to the exact same posts. I felt like I was losing my mind, so I decided to see if they’ve had any other activity in the groups that I am a part of. It turns out that they do. They are active in promoting the blogs of damiendavid and lights. They are also all in the same Facebook circles.
I looked into it a little bit further and found out that Jonathan Sy Dee and Archer Cruz Guevarra both joined The Aswang Project Facebook page on the same day, within 1 minute of each other.
I decided to conduct a little experiment. I created a post on The Aswang Project facebook page saying “The beautiful love story between Sidapa and Bulan was written in 2016 and was only inspired by Philippine Mythology. It’s a wonderful tale and deserves all the art and admiration it has received, but is not part of Philippine pre-colonial beliefs.” This is essentially true. The love story did not start its evolution until 2016, although it had started being crafted in blogs the previous few years. If there really was some troubled person sitting behind the shadows, watching their lie integrate itself into popular belief and ultimately history itself, their ego would simply not allow my post to go unchecked.
If my theory was correct, I should receive a response from Jonathan and/or Archer within moments of each other. They did not disappoint.
CONNECTING THE DOTS
When I visited David Evangelista‘s Facebook Page, I could see that they are friends with Archer and Tanashiri.
Visiting Tanashiri’s Facebook Page, I can see that Jonathan Sy Dee is liking their posts and showering compliments.
At this point, I have no reason to think that all of these accounts are not run by the same person. If I were reading this article, I would like to know that all of the people mentioned above have been given a chance to explain their side, cite a source, or even have a conversation. Again, I reached out to damiendavid and lights on their blogs over 2 months ago with the follow message “Hello. This is The Aswang Project reaching out. I am writing an article about your blogs and would love to hear from you directly. info(at)aswangproject(dot)com. Thanks ” In addition, I sent a message to all four Facebook accounts explaining that I was writing an article on the story and the associated blogs and Facebook accounts. I did not receive a response from any of them. The common interests, shared images, content, and thoughts are just way too similar between these accounts to assume they are unrelated. Most of all, they all actively promoted the love story between Bulan and Sidapa as a pre-colonial Philippine belief. It is impossible to research one of them without being sent in circles throughout all their accounts.
Here are some other accounts set up by the above that actively promote the love story between Sidapa and Bulan as pre-colonial Philippine beliefs:
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI9Pxf21NiVKD5GchyAlB6g
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCop9DWCr_rjUPVafwihnjug
Tumblr:
https://visayandatu2.tumblr.com/
IN CLOSING
I’m really at a loss for words. I hate that I felt the need to write this post, but I feel it is a fair exposé to share to those newly learning about Philippine Myth & Folklore, and to those who may want to learn about it in the future. With all the time and effort that people have spent researching, creating art, and debating this hoax, I can’t help but think of the current state of historical revisionism. If one person can convince an entire generation of the imaginary love affair between Bulan and Sidapa, imagine what a legion of thousands can do for political purposes.
The Bulan & Sidapa deception is a sad reflection of how easily we are persuaded and manipulated into believing something we want to be real. There are countless threads arguing the validity of this story. The above social media accounts have created just enough doubt that we believe it might possibility…maybe….could be part of oral tradition. I can tell you flat out that it is not. The love story between Bulan and Sidapa is a work of fiction that was deliberately spread in a manner that misrepresented it as precolonial beliefs.
If you believed the story, you are in good company. Many respected websites and news outlets have reported on this tale:
MAKING QUEER HISTORY – December 19, 2018
THE LASALLIAN – January 22, 2019 (article since removed)
SCOUTMAG.PH – August 2019 (article since removed)
TEAMMAG.PH – August 18th, 2018 (article since removed)
The last article was titled “Did Visayan mythology give us the first gay Filipino love team?” and really made an effort to show that the story was likely modern fiction.
I personally feel ridiculous for the hours and hours I spent trying to source the story of Bulan & Sidapa.
For those who are interested in learning what is known and documented about Bulan, I have compiled it in the link below.
***UPDATE June 26 2021
Since this article was originally published in August 2019, I have taken a LOT of flack for disproving the Bulan/ Libulan and Sidapa Visayan/ Bicol deity love affair. During the May 2021 Aswang Project controversy where I was accused of “pretending to be Filipino,” being homophobic, transphobic, and even a “white supremist”, there were dozens of accusations stating I was trying to erase this Panaynon belief.
As seen in this article above, the creator of the (what is now known as) fiction said this story came from the Sugidanons (Epics of Panay). I am very familiar with the epics and I said they did not appear there – this also led to more accusations.
Kael Molo asked the question of Rara Bidaure-Limoso Ramirez, Project Coordinator /Senior Associate Researcher for the Publication of the Epics of Panay at University of the Philippines, Visayas. She had the following to say:
END OF UPDATE***
Instead of leaving this article on a negative note where something seen as progressive in modern times was shown to be false, I am including a wonderfully well researched article by By JESSICA BARTOLOME and MARGARET CLAIRE LAYUG that includes many things to be proud of:
You may also read our other article: LAKAPATI / Lakan Pati : The Transgender Tagalog Deity
Jordan Clark is a Canadian born descendant of Scottish immigrants living on the homelands of the Lekwungen speaking peoples. His interest in Philippine myth and folklore began in 2004. Finding it difficult to track down resources on the topic, he founded The Aswang Project in 2006. Shortly after, he embarked on a 5 year journey, along with producing partner Cheryl Anne del Rosario, to make the 2011 feature length documentary THE ASWANG PHENOMENON – an exploration of the aswang myth and its effects on Philippine society. In 2015 he directed “The Creatures of Philippine Mythology” web-series, which features 3 folkloric beings from the Philippines – the TIKBALANG, KAPRE and BAKUNAWA. Episodes are available to watch on YouTube. Jordan recently oversaw the editing for the English language release of Ferdinand Blumentritt’s DICCIONARIO MITOLÓGICO DE FILIPINAS (Dictionary of Philippine Mythology) and is working on two more releases with fellow creators scheduled for release later this year. When his nose isn’t in a book, he spends time with his amazing Filipina wife of 20 years and their smart and wonderful teenaged daughter.
