Wednesday, June 5, 2019

A Modern Visayan Urban Legend

 
 
A certain Warlito Toledo alyas “Waway” made the news rounds in the 1980s, ‘90s, and early ‘00s. Local blogs state that the earliest arrest record of him can be found in Danao, Cebu. He was charged with reckless imprudence resulting in homicide on November 8, 1989. Later on, a rape case was filed against him on September 10, 1996. He was finally arrested on December 1, 1999.

In September 2002, another rape case was filed against Waway. He fled and his whereabouts were not known until five years later, when he was implicated in a rape and murder case of a 17-year-old student in Danao.
While these are the recorded cases against Waway, the stories that spread about him spiralled out of control. The rumor was Waway’s wife had been brutally murdered in front of him by a group of armored men. This drove him insane, which caused his rape and murder spree. In another version of the story, it was actually Waway who murdered his wife and he enjoyed it so much, he sought out other victims. He was said to terrorize different parts of Cebu, including Compostela, Liloan, Consolacion, and Lapu-Lapu, even killing as many as 40 people in one day in his mad thirst for blood.


Some stories transcended the boundary into fiction because there were rumors of Waway transforming into an animal to stalk his victims. The stories said that once he had chosen a target, he spit on that person’s slippers or shoes, often left outside doors, to mark the house. This caused people in Cebu to take their footwear inside the house and for young people to avoid roaming around the streets especially late at night.

Amid all these seemingly unbelievable tales that gave Waway his status as an urban legend, there exist “Wanted” posters of Waway plastered on houses around Danao. In the ‘00s, the local government offered a reward to anyone who could give information about Cebu’s supernatural serial killer. There seems to be no update on the case and it appears that Waway is still on the run. 
 

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