Maria Cristina Falls

Datu Talim is very popular in the whole town of Maguindanao to Sulu due to the unsurpass beauty of his daughter Maria Cristina. But hidden to the knowledge of many, Datu Talim is not the real father of Maria Cristina.

Maria Cristina is a daughter of a fisherman and at the same time a farmer who lives in Romblon. Maria is a very kind child, she always help her father in planting vegetables and fruit trees in its small parcel of land. Maria and his family are poor but even in their difficulties, they are still happy.

One day, their village were invaded by the soldiers of Datu Talim. And because the villagers are armless and has no knowledge in battle, majority of them flee to the mountains. Maria was still a child during that time, and doesn't know a thing about what was happening in the village. She continue to play when she was abducted by the soldiers of Datu Talim. Her father tried to save her but he was killed instead.

Poor Maria was then offered to Datu Talim and because of its possessed beauty, she was loved and fancied by the Datu and treated her like his own daughter. As the time comes, Maria Cristina had grown to be a very beautiful woman and because of that Datu Talim became more popular.

Lots of people like Maria Cristina and wanted to court her but Datu Talim was so protective. But since he love Maria so much, he could not say no it. Maria needs to be happy also.

A young man name prince San-i who happen to be very sincere in courting the Maria, a brave, smart and talented young man and is a pure royal blood. Maria Cristina fall in love with the prince and felt so much happiness whenever they are together which lead the two to get married. So prince San-i together with his father visited Datu Talim and asked the hands of Maria. And because Datu Talim wish nothing but the happiness of Maria, he agreed and the grand wedding ceremony were set.

While both parties are all busy preparing for the wedding, the lovers meet each other and talked about their future together.

But unknown to both of them, there was a witch who was already in love with prince San-i and get very jealous to Maria Cristina. The witch wanted to stop the wedding and she could not think of any thing but to curse the prince and Maria that their wedding will not going to happen.

Two nights before the scheduled wedding of Maria and Prince San-i, Maria remembered her mother which she had not seen for a long time. She went to the place where she and the prince used to see each other and there she cried a lot because she longed to see her mother. Even though prince San-I had already promised to her that they will visit her mother after the wedding, still she could no help herself in missing her mother. She closed her eyes and played in her thoughts the memories she had together with her parents when she was still a child.

At that time, the ugly witch who was in love with the prince came through her back and Maria thought it was her fiance and upon opening her eyes she was surprised when she saw the ugly woman.

"Did you know that San-i is mine?" Your wedding to him is not going to happen. Go ahead, continue to shed your tears," the witch said.

Maria cried even more because she didn't realize that in her happiness together with prince San-i, an outraged heart is in despair. "On the day of your marriage, you will never be seeing San-i anymore. You took him away from me. Go ahead continue to shed your tears, few hours before your wedding ceremony, you will become a mountain. Your tears will flow to the village and towards the sea," according to the witch who was very angry.

The wedding ceremony had arrived and the families of both parties were surprised because Maria Cristina didn't arrive at the wedding. They tried to look for her and after a few hours of searching, they noticed something new in the village, there was a new mountain that shed a tears. It's tears flow towards the city and form a river. "Where is Maria Cristina, what will happen to their wedding?" asked the villagers.

"Hahaha! That weeping mountain is no other than Maria Cristina. I cursed her because she tooked San-i away from me. The stream of her tears will continue towards the city and will become a river," the witch said.

Datu Talim together with all the villagers was so angry, they ran over to the witch and wished to kill her but the witch ran faster to the woods and since then, the ugly witch never showed her face to the village.

Since then, the weeping mountain were named as Maria Cristina Falls.

Facts
Maria Cristina falls is the famous waterfall in the city of Iligan, my hometown. It is also referred as the "twin falls" because its waterflows were divided by a rock which makes the waterfall looks like an eye, a weeping eye.

Due to its strong water current, the falls were utilized by the National Power Corporation to generate electricity. In fact, the falls is responsible of supplying electricity to the whole island of Mindanao.
Source

The story was composed by the creative mind of the Filipino and were translated to be understood by the community.

ImageSource [1] [2]