4 More Urban Legends In Cebu

Cebu may be a highly urbanized city, but it does have a number of urban legends that have been going around for years. Here are four more urban legends you may have heard of if you lived in the Queen City of the South.

Med School Pranksters

One urban legend revolves around some medical school students who are supposedly infamous for playing pranks on unsuspecting victims. One of their victims was a female student who was known to innocent and gets easily frightened, or so they thought. They supposedly placed a disfigured leg on the bed of the student. When she woke up, they heard her screams. But, the screams unexpectedly stopped. The med students were curious about what happened and checked on the female student. To their surprise, they found her grinning as she was chewing on the leg.

Doomsday

Around two decades ago, there was a letter sent to a popular radio station in Cebu. The letter was about a man who offered a pack of peanuts to a homeless child at the Plaza Independencia. The child declined the peanuts. To show gratitude for the compassion of the man, the child told the man to put up a sign on the door of his house saying “Higugmaa and Diyos, Kahadloki ang Diyos” or Love God, Fear God. The sign will supposedly keep his family safe. 

Cebu Urban Legends – image source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

According to the story, a Noah level flood will come and wipe the world of sins. It will supposedly last forty days and forty nights. Only the homes with the sign will remain safe. Following the effects of the Ormoc flashflood, Cebuanos became apprehensive. Soon the sign was found in a lot of homes around the city. They were in the form of stickers or hand-painted signs. While the flood never came, there are still some places where you can see the sign hung at the doors of some buildings and structures around the city.

Adventurous Niño

The Santo Niño is one of the most revered figures in Cebu. Cebuanos celebrate the Sinulog each year in honor of the Santo Niño. While there are many miracles that people attribute to the Santo Niño, there are also some stories about the adventurous nature of the Holy Child of Cebu.

Cebu Urban Legends – image source: commons.wikimedia.org

Cebu Urban Legends – image source: courtesy of Peter Parcon

Another story was about the image of the Santo Niño in the Basilica Minor del Santo Nino. There are times when the image would disappear from its glass housing at night. The image would reappear in the same housing with its vestments and shoes muddied. The glass case would also have some toys and sweets inside.

Exotic Siopao

Some places in the Queen City of the South supposedly sell siopao with a secret main ingredient, cat meat. No one really knows when or how the story started, but it may be attributed to the time when meat was scarce during World War 2. During this time, siopao makers supposedly used cat meat as a substitute. 

Cebu Urban Legends – image source: courtesy of Peter Parcon

​Another story was about two rival siopao vendors. To gain an advantage over the other, one supposedly spread a lie about an added ingredient in the siopao of the rival. The story was passed on until people started to believe it. 

Do you know of other urban legends in Cebu? Tell us about it on the comments section below.