Bathala and Alanón, an Excerpt [ENGLISH]
This is an edited excerpt from a graphic novel I had started writing in 2017, in the midst of the dark times the Philippines was having. It was about a cynical Anthropology student whose dear friend was killed in the drug war, who accidentally finds himself in the affairs of ancient Tagalog deities after he accidentally awakens one who had been imprisoned for trying to incite an apocalypse of humankind. I had always planned to have it published as a graphic novel in time for the next election for its message about humanity, but I had always been short on resources, so I'm publishing this excerpt now, which I will take down in a few days. Trivia: You will notice that I use the term diwata to refer to them as deities. Diwata is a Filipino word used to refer to spirits of nature, which comes from the Sanskrit devata , which means "divine." I believe that in precolonial times, to the natives of the Islands, these spirits of nature were divine; and it wasn't until the ...