The supposed visions were first reported by a sixth grader, Belinda Villas, and her seven friends from the same grade level at Cabra Elementary School.
The children described the figure in the alleged apparitions as a "beautiful lady wearing a white robe and a blue sash around her waist".
One recorded vision has the lady smiling and with a sweet, reassuring voice, telling them in Tagalog: “Ako ang Inmaculada Concepción.” (“I am the Immaculate Conception.”) While a small chapel has since been erected on the hilltop where the supposed apparitions occurred, the incident has not been formally approved by the Philippine Church or the Holy See.
Their individual stories, notes, photographs, and the messages from the “lady bathed in light, and always smiling, always with a kindly expression on her face” were documented and published in the 1978 book The Apparitions of Cabra Islet.
[1] The purported apparitions eventually inspired the 1982 Ishmael Bernal drama film Himala, starring Nora Aunor and with screenplay by Ricky Lee.