The chilling history behind Malabon’s demonic tombstone.

Don Simeon Bernardo didn’t believe in God. He wanted everybody to know about it, so much so that he built a hair-raising monument of a devil triumphing over an angel.

This sculpture now guards the tomb of Don Simeon who died of heart attack in 1934 at the age of 65. Since then, the now-famous tombstone in Tugatog, Malabon has been the subject of a lot of legends perpetuated by people who never even knew its real origins.

It only took an interview with one of Don Simeon’s surviving children to figure out the history behind the bizarre tombstone. In a traumatizing episode (at least for me) of the ’90s TV show Magandang Gabi Bayan, Atty. Sumilang Bernardo said that her father was a victim of Spanish oppression.

Accused of being a revolutionary, Don Bernardo was arrested by the Guardia Civil and subjected to unimaginable punishments like forcing him to drink a pail of water containing human excreta.

One day, Don Bernardo realized he’s had enough. He turned his back on the Catholic religion that had completely penetrated the Filipino society.

For him, the good didn’t exist in the world anymore and the Catholic religion was a mere tool of the colonizers to put Philippines under its control.

Aside from creating the now-infamous statue, Don Bernardo also made all his 10 children promise to never believe in God.

Out of these 10, only three remained atheists–including Atty. Sumilang–while the rest converted to Roman Catholicism upon marriage.

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