YMMV / Philippine Mythology

• Adaptation Displacement: While many Filipinos first learn about elements of the country's mythology or rather mythologies through word of mouth (particularly regarding the concepts of aswang, multo, mumu, mamaw and other spooky supernatural creatures) as well as reading, more and more Filipinos, especially among the younger generations, will tend to learn through pop culture appearances such as in movies and TV, which may take liberties. Even for those who learn through books, scholarly books are harder to get ahold of than are children's and young adult books and other forms of adaptations.
• Common Knowledge: The above state of affairs inevitably leads to this. For instance, as stated in the main page, "babaylan" has become the default term for indigenous Philippine shamans despite that not all ethnic groups and subgroups used this term per se. And thanks to systemic bias, i.e. Creator Provincialism lasting through several generations' worth of educational and other media, some terms and concepts from certain ethnic groups are more well-known than others, such as Bathala as the pre-colonial equivalent to the Christian God. He's only the Tagalog pre-colonial equivalent to the Christian God.
• Fridge Brilliance: Mayari was formerly a sun-deity herself, as there was no moon OR nighttime before she lost the duel, and she is known as the goddess of REVOLUTION.
• Newer Than They Think: The Cultural Chop Suey is very hard to untangle, and there's a relative lack of reliable sources about the topic, especially online, with the best scholarly and reference materials being buried in academic studies and libraries. So some relatively new elements may be mistaken for being age-old, especially with Adaptation Displacement, Common Knowledge and Pop-Cultural Osmosis in effect.
  • Even in the Spanish colonial period this was already in effect, as somehow a knight named Bernardo del Carpio from Spanish chivalric romance became Bernardo Carpio, a native hero, sometimes of giant stature, trapped between two huge stones inside a cave and trying to get free by pushing his way out. This story somehow further came to stand for colonial oppression and inevitable liberation once he broke free from literal chains (and one or more of his limbs was already free...), to the point of being invoked by nationalist and revolutionary movements of the 19th century. While the story may just have originated as a way to explain earthquakes, at least the name of the hero is surely derived from outside influence and cannot be older than the Bernardo del Carpio romances.
  • Future national hero Jose Rizal noticed that many place-names in Tagalog regions reflected their mythological creatures but "Bathala" was absent, despite early Spanish sources recording it. It seems "Bathala" fell out of common knowledge as a term for God until it was rediscovered by nationalist historians after Rizal's death and promoted as part of Filipino cultural heritage.