Doppelgängers

It's back! Midnight Stories will be posted every evening of October to celebrate the month of ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night. Here's our fifth installment. Enjoy!



When we transferred to our new offices about 17 years ago, I began seeing them around the premises, mostly at noon.

They would look like the production people who worked overnight, writing scripts or editing video.

Eventually I would learn to recognize if I were really seeing them or their double, by their facial expression. Let me tell you how.

A doppelgänger—a German word meaning "double-walker"—is expressionless. Like a zombie. They don’t answer if you greet them or try to engage them in conversation. In other words, deadma.

At first I thought they were just fatigued or sleepy from staying up all night working on their reports, or that perhaps they hadn’t heard me.

But when I’d run into the same people on my way back to my desk from lunch and they’d be wearing something different from when I saw them earlier, I’d go, “O, ba’t nag-change costume ka? Iba suot mo kanina!” and they’d reply, “Kararating ko lang”—that’s how I know I’d been "doppeled."

Iinitially I thought that I had been mistaken, but when the incidents began happening with increasing regularity, I had to admit there was something else going on.

Take this female public affairs manager who I saw during lunch break at a supermarket check-out counter. My husband and I were eating at one of the food kiosks and I called out to her.

She did not appear to have heard me and my husband shushed me, saying I must be mistaken and that the lady may not be who I thought she was.

An hour later, in one of our studios, I ran into the same manager wearing the same blue suit. I asked her if she had been at the supermarket earlier and she said no.

But I saw you, I insisted. You were even wearing this same suit and white blouse. She showed me her blouse—it was black. So I guess I was wrong, I said.

Also, I added, this other girl was wearing black-rimmed glasses and I know you don’t.

But I do, she answered, and fished out the exact same pair from her bag to show me.

That’s not the last time I’d seen the doppelgängers.

While walking towards my cubicle one late afternoon, I saw the head of the videography section—whose work station was right outside mine—hunched over his computer.

So there I was sitting behind my desk and talking to him over the partition when another co-worker pops his head around our dividing wall to ask, “Ma’am, sinong kausap n’yo?”

"Si Dandy," I said.

He looked at me quizzically. "Kanina pa po umuwi 'yon."

Earlier this year, one of our trackers called me on my mobile.

“Ma’am, where are you?”

“Driving my son to the prom,” I answered. “That’s why I’m on leave today, remember?”

And she goes: “But we just saw you seated at your desk, working on the computer!”

“And one of the reporters heard your voice pa, “ insisted another.

Namilog ang mga mata ko. Goosebumps crawled on my arms.

Pati ba naman ako?

According to the old stories, sightings like these can be a harbinger of death, so well-meaning people would advise the person whose double appears to head to the nearest church to pray.

One frantic call to a priest friend later, I directed the driver to take me to the Sta. Rita Church, where I sent up a silent prayer for deliverance.

The question now must be asked: did my colleagues really encounter my apparition, or did I just experience the phenomenon of bilocation, or being in two separate locations at one time (which is just as weird, if you ask me)?

It is said that all of us have a shadow self that follows us everywhere.

Sometimes they are in the same place we are, so that people would literally be seeing double, or you could be in one place while your double is somewhere else entirely.

In my case, the tracker who “saw” me as she walked past my cubicle told me she remembers that I was wearing white—and at the time, February 10, 2015, I was still in mourning and wore only black.

The last sighting I had before I myself was doubled was on December 17, 2014. It was the second floor’s Christmas party (we usually have several office parties during this season: one big one for the Network, another per department, still another per floor, and so forth and so on) and we were goofing around with the 7-Eleven delivery guy who brought the drinks we ordered.

In this photo (below), we all wore reindeer or Santa hats and were hamming it up for a wacky pose. I saw that one of the news production administrators seated in one of the cubicles was also wearing a Santa hat and yelled out to her to join us in the shot.

She just sat there looking steadily at me, like she was contemplating whether or not to do it.

After the 7-Eleven guy left and we got caught up in the preparations for the holiday buffet, I forgot all about her until we started eating and I began conducting a roll call to make sure that everyone was there.

“Nasaan na si Winnilyn? Tawagan n’yo na nga,” I called out to no one in particular.

“Ma’am, papunta pa lang 'yun,” someone answered.

“Hindi,” I insisted. “Kanina pa dumating, nakaupo doon sa cubicle nila Ponyang. Ayaw nga sumama sa group shot natin eh. Inaaya ko, ayaw lumapit.”

About a half hour later, Winni walked into the room and someone said, “O, ayan na si Winnilyn, kadarating lang.”

“Sige nga, Winni,” I told the girl. “Sabihin mo nga sa kanila na kanina ka pa nandito.”

Winnilyn stopped in her tracks to correct me: "No, ma’am, kadarating ko lang."

And that, folks, is that. — BM, GMA News