A calamansi a day can keep the 'aswang' away

It's Halloween, a holiday with roots in Samhain (pronounced sow-won), the Celtic New Year, a time when it is believed that the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead are especially thin, allowing the spirits of the deceased to roam our earthly plane. Samhain also celebrates the end of the harvest season and the arrival of winter.

- YVETTE TAN

In keeping with the supernatural spirit of the season, I'd like to talk about something I discovered just this week. We all know that certain foods have the ability to repel supernatural creatures. Garlic and salt are used to repel a variety of creatures, including "aswang"; and babies and toddlers are made to wear a red pouch with fresh ginger inside it to ward off "bati," or the evil eye.

When I was in Kalinga a couple of months ago, I was made to smell guyabano leaves to stop a headache that my host suspected was caused by a resident spirit taking interest in me. This, along with another local remedy of burning some of the afflicted person's hair and making them smell the ashes, helped cure me of my malaise.

Now I have something new to add to my food-based arsenal against the supernatural, and that's citrus. I learned this from Karl Gaverza, author, researcher, and founder of "Philippine Spirits," a book series and website dedicated to promulgating the different mythologies from the Philippine archipelago.