Dian Masalanta : The Exiled Maria Makiling

According to folklore and stories passed from generation to generation, Maria Makiling can take any shape or form, one of which describes her as a nymph from a fog and mists that come from the Mountains, depending on what an individual considers beauty. Stories also share the ill fate of different individuals, specifically, men that wander too deep within the forest that surrounds Mt. Makiling alluring them deeper into the forest, never to be seen again.

Another story in regard to Maria Makiling is in relation to her position as a former deity - according to the story, Maria Makiling was originally known as the deity Dian Masalantra, who was invoked to stop deluges, storms, and natural disasters that ensues upon the land; and that she was a patroness of the Mountain now known as Mt. Makiling who was held as the goddess of fertility, love, childbirth, and the protector of lovers. Dian Masalanta was a pantheon of the people, and the daughter of Anagolay, a deity for the lost, who was wed to Dumakulem, a guardian of the mountains. Often confused as the goddess of peace, Dian Masalanta was always overlooked among her fellow deities as she was less prideful of her character, being the kindest and most loving among all the goddesses that she was compared to as she desired nothing but peace and love for all things much like a child, which in a sense connects to her youth and position as the youngest of the children of Anagolay and Dumakulem.

Bathala, the supreme god of all gods, gave Dian Masalanta the duty of peacemaker among all the tribes that pursue war, and as time passes she only performed her duties extraordinarily. However, her fate as a deity fell from grace, as she fell in deep love and passion for a mortal man, angering her family - as she broke one of the sacred laws that these deities uphold, as mortals and gods do not belong to one another.

As punishment, she was banished and stripped of the several powers she was blessed with, however, she saw this as an opportunity to be finally happy and at peace among the people that she loved and cared for; more importantly, she is now reunited with the lover that she was exiled for, and is now free from all sacred laws that once bounded her.

In the modern age, she can only rarely be seen, and only by those that choose to wander in the forest that surrounds the famous Mt. Makiling; for the fate of these wandering travelers is unknown as they are never to be seen again.