Sigbin or not? Skeletons found in Talisay house spur speculations

A skeleton of a creature that had yet to be identified was found intact inside a ceiling of an ancestral house in Talisay City in southern Cebu. | Futch Anthony Inso

LAPU-LAPU CITY, Cebu — Two skeletons of an unidentified creature with two long hind legs, which was found inside the ceiling of a believed to be nearly a 100-year-old ancestral house, has spurred speculations of them belonging allegedly to that of a sigbin.

Ray Cervantes, owner of the house, said that he showed the bones to the elderly, and they told him that the skeletons might be that of a “sigbin.”

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A sigbin is a goat-like creature in Philippine mythology that sucks blood from shadows and kills children for their hearts. It can become invisible, clap its ears, and whip its tail.

“Daghan nag-ingon sigbin. Mao ba? Wala pa man ko kita og sigbin,” he added.

(Many said that these were skeletons of a sigbin. Is that so? I haven’t really saw a sigbin.)

He also did not believe that the skeletons were those of cats.

“Bisag kisa’y pasultihon, dili kuno iring. Lingin man gud ni ug laparon. Dunay duha ka tiil, ambot duna bay kamot. Dakog bangkil, talinis ug lingin ang mata,” he said.

(If you ask anyone, [the answer] is that those are not skeletons of a cat. It is round and wide. It has two feet, I don’t know if it has hands. It has long, sharp fangs, and it has round eyes [Cervantes was referring to the holes on the head of the creature].)

How the skeletons were found

He said it was his helper, who found the skeletons at the ceiling of their house.

The first skeleton was found earlier, while the other one was found yesterday, November 11, 2024.

One of the skeleton was still intact while the other was not, the bones of the other skeleton were already in disarray. These was after they removed it from the ceiling of the house.

He said that before their discovery, he asked his helpers to repair the roof and ceilings, which had already holes on them.

“Nagpuyo ko diri naa koy madunggan nga magdagan-dagan. Sabaan ko usahay akong tuktukon,” Cervantes said in an interview with DySS Super Radyo Cebu.

(We lived here and we sometimes hear something running on the ceiling. I am bothered by the noise sometimes, so I would knock on the ceiling then.)

The ancestral house, Cervantes said, was brought by his grandparents before the 1940s Japanese occupation.

So this would put the house to be nearly a hundred or a hundred years old.

Cervantes also said that he just moved there before the COVID-19 pandemic, after his wife migrated in America. His house was just across their ancestral house.

Healing properties

Aside from speculations of the skeleton and bones being that of a sigbin, he also claimed that these had healing properties.

“Kung imo ning kuptan, mura ka’g maluya,” he said.

(If you hold this, you will feel weak.)

“Akong usa ka helper, naayo iyang matag-tiki [human siya nikupot sa bukog],” Cervantes added.

(One of my helpers had his boil healed [after he held the skeleton].)

Cervantes said that he planned to keep the skeletons.

He said since he posted it on Facebook, many people had shown interest in the skeletons, saying they were unique.

He said in an interview with dyHP that some people reached out to him and offered him a sizable amount of money for the skeletons but he declined them.

This was after he claimed to have dreamed of someone telling him not to sell the skeletons.

For now, Cervantes said he was asking the government to help him identify these creatures that these skeletons belong to.

“Diri lang sa ni, hangtod naay kuan sa gobyerno nga mo-identify ani,” he said.

(This will stay here until there will be someone in government that will identify what these creatures are.) | With a report from Paul Lauro