Ikaw ay si Maria Makiling

One of the stories we made up in college involved the Filipino fable of Maria Makiling, a spirit who inhabited Mt.Makiling and whom legend said would waylay travelers until they were lost forever. Our version involved Ikaw, the ape, as her apprentice...

Maria Makiling, having found the baby ape abandoned in the mountains, took the orphan in and named him Ikaw (as in, "Ikaw, huwag kang patanga-tanga diyan!" and that sort). Eventually Ikaw became something of her apprentice. But when Maria Makiling (in our story) died after she was hit by a truck carrying illegal logging, Ikaw decided to carry on her legacy of waylaying hapless travelers on Mt.Makiling. But his feeble disguise didn't fool anyone and no one was attracted enough to follow him, so business was bad. Ikaw eventually left Mt.Makiling to earn money in Manila, where he found employment doing demeaning catalog modelling work.