The Color of Water

Art by Jannielyn Ann Bigtas/GMA News

Talim Island.

I’ve never been there but I read that it is the largest lake island in Laguna de Bay, so called because it’s shaped like a dagger.

The hilly island bordered on the west by the town of Binangonan and to the east by Cardona, is located in the province of Rizal.

Water lilies run riot in Talim, as do fish pens and traps and bancas and contraptions made out of plastic, wood and metal bits called lampitaws that ferry people,  animals and produce to and from its seventeen villages.

This strip of land smack dab in the middle of Laguna lake is continuously eroded by typhoons and many of its inhabitants are fisherfolk that make their living from the waters surrounding them — tending fish pens of bangus, ayungin, biya, kanduli and tilapia — for fishpond investors.

Laguna de Bay is a freshwater lake that drains into Manila Bay through the Pasig River, by way of the Napindan Channel.

The Napindan gate is the only outlet that prevents the flow of saltwater to the lake from Pasig River and Manila Bay; saltwater that provides food for the fish and other lake species.

So my first question —  when I first heard of this creature from  the girl who saw it —  was how was it even able to find its way to the waters around Talim with the gate closed?

It was during a steady rain at dusk that L----- saw him surface from the water. She was seated outside one of those huts built for fish pen tenders,  just watching the rain dimpling the water when he emerged from the murky depths  and rested his elbows on the hut’s outer ridge.

His appearance was preceded by a distinct plop like what something solid dropping lightly on the water would make so L----- instinctively turned her face to the direction of the sound.

Imagine her surprise when she saw this creature with huge eyes, long ears, wearing what appeared to be  a circle of gold around its head and webbed hands!

I showed her a poster for a movie that won the 2018 Academy Award for Best Picture and asked her if  Guillermo del Toro’s amphibian man depicted in it looked anything like the creature she saw. She said they were similar in that they were both humanoid in form.

But the creature she saw was also the color of the brackish water from whence it surfaced.

She thinks the creature didn’t notice her at once because it was getting dark. She was wearing a dark raincoat and sat very still.

But when it finally saw her, it disappeared back into the water noiselessly.

A story dating back to the 1600s tells of a mermaid that entered Holland through a dike.

Could this one have entered through Napindan during the wet season when the flow is reversed towards Manila Bay when the water level is high?

Another merfolk account is that of a sea captain who saw a beautiful maiden swimming gracefully off the coast of Newfoundland in 1614, with long green hair but with a tail instead of legs from the waist down. [In a story I wrote for Midnight

Stories on October 24, 2014 (The Ladies of the Rocks) the sea creatures a group of fishermen saw one moonless night also had long green hair they initially mistook for seaweeds]

Because of Animal Planet’s docufiction Mermaids:The Body Found and its sequel The New Evidence (that aired in 2012) and the so-called Feejee (Fiji) Mermaid in the Barnum Museum  that showman P.T. Barnum created out of a monkey’s torso and fish’s tail (when the member of the British Lyceum of Natural History who arrived in New York City with the original specimen in 1842, refused to display it there) – eyewitness accounts of mermaids are generally disbelieved.

In Fukuoka, Japan – a temple said to house the remains of a mermaid that washed ashore in 1222 -  was on display for 800 years but even that could not legitimize mermaid sightings. Cultural anthropologists are hard put to find evidence to prove the existence of these aquatic creatures.

Merfolk also have a bad rep for summoning storms, sinking ships and drowning sailors. These water spirits are said to reside in lakes, coasts and rivers and have a penchant for taking children or those foolish enough to swim alone in remote places. Kaya ba’t pa sila pasisikatin, hindi ba?

But merfolk don’t always just bring bad luck. Sometimes they befriend humans and help them catch fish.

In the coastal waters of Laguna, Brazil, bottlenose dolphins help fishermen herd shoals of mullet into nets. A trait they supposedly learned from merfolk that swim with them during sardine runs.

One such mermaid helped a fisherman in a small fishing village in a quiet town of Agno, Pangasinan. The strapping fisherman reportedly befriended the mermaid that he met on one of his nightly forays.

The fisherman usually set out at night because it was when the wind helped him steer his banca to the best fishing grounds by dawn. And dawn is when the fish move toward the surface of the water attracted by the growing light. It also helped that he had the friendship of a sea sprite who pointed out to him where the fishes were.

The other fishermen grew envious of his always returning to shore with a good catch even if they themselves caught nothing. So one night, after a drinking spree, they ganged up on him and beat him to death.

When the mermaid deduced what had happened to her friend, she commenced a keening, mourning lament  that was heard in the entire village for three days and three nights and from that time on,  the catch of the fishermen steadily declined until there was no more fish to be caught – a mermaid’s punishment for the loss of the man she loved. — LA, GMA News