Among the most enduring is the myth of the Kapre: a towering, tobacco-smoking tree spirit said to haunt the forests. Few Filipinos know that the Parian slave market in Manila, now Binondo, was once a hub of human trafficking. There is a compelling theory that the Kapre myth originated from these fugitives. Today, we face a different kind of forest, not of trees, but of tangled bureaucracy, entrenched corruption, and institutional decay. And just as colonial myths once kept us from the literal jungle, modern myths keep us from confronting the civic one.