I just picked this up in a forum I hang out in and thought you might be interested in some
Philippino folklo

Back in the Philippines, haunted trees are somewhat a common belief
especially in the province (i.e., the countryside), and usually take the
form of the anito (i.e. ancestral spirits) residing in the banyan tree.
The banyan tree is a large tree with eerie sprawling roots that can
be found in Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands including Hawaii.

Back in 1976, I was roommates with another Filipino-American in Oakland,
California who had never been to the Philippines being born and raised
in Oakland. Around May 1976, he went on a two-month trip to his
grandmother's nipa hut in the northern Philippines (his very first trip
to the Philippines). One morning he got up to investigate the
countryside near his grandmother's house and found a banyan tree with
sprawling roots and decided to lay down in between some of the sprawling
roots of the banyan tree to take a late morning nap in the shade of the
tree. As he started to fall asleep, he heard voices speaking in Ilokano
(the local languange there) up in the tree, then he heard the sound of
bolos (Philippine machete) and axes chopping on the tree, after awhile
he heard the tree starting to fall down - then his nephew woke him up
and said "Uncle, uncle it's time to go to the afternoon prayer." My
roommate looked at his watch and it was 1:55pm, but he felt so sick and
nauseous, his nephew had to help him back to his grandmother's house.
Upon entering the house, his grandmother looked at him, and asked him
what was wrong. My roommate said, "I don't know, I feel sick, I just
slept under a big tree." His grandmother said, "What tree?" He
replied, "That tree over there with the sprawling roots" His
grandmother scolded him, "Never, never sleep by that tree, it's
haunted." She then asked her sons to go to the graveyard and gather a
little burial cloth. She told my roommate to lay down on the banig
(sleeping mat); and when her sons came back with the burial cloth, she
rubbed the cloth on her grandson chanting some words in Ilokano, then
told him that he would sleep for two minutes and then wake up feeling
fine. My roommate told me "I'm not kidding, I woke up two minutes later
and I was hungry."

That same year, I met a Franciscan brother who had visited the San
Francisco bay area to give a presentation on Mindanao after staying in
Mindanao for over 20 years. The Franciscan brother was American, but he
had stayed in Mindanao so long that his English had a heavy Bisaya
accent (even heavier than mine). He showed some video about how the
Franciscan brothers were helping the Bisaya farmers in Mindanao improve
their life especially with farming and dealing with local authorities
(somewhat corrupt back in those days); toward the end of the video,
there was a shot of a banyan tree where you could see faces of the anito
(ancentral spirits) in the branches speaking in Bisaya. The Franciscan
brother then said, we don't try to discourage their ancient beliefs as
they are woven into their Catholic beliefs and don't appear to be
particularly harmful.


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