The majority of Filipinos embrace the Holy Roman Catholic Church...
85 percent of the population.
In the West it is hard for us to comprehend their deeply held belief in the opposing army
of darkness.
The Aswang monster did not come as a stowaway in Spanish galleons.
The Aswang was already an ancient evil dwelling in the Philippines when the Spanish first
arrived.
The Aswang are an evil race of many species, including those that cast spells to make people
sick or to kill them, those that transform into animals before attacking humans, those
that drink human blood and those that devour human corpses.
The most remarkable of these is the Manananggal, which eats human flesh and is especially fond
of the heart and the liver.
By daylight this Aswang looks like a woman of exceptional beauty.
She covertly observes her neighbors and chooses her victim.
The favorite food of the Manananggal is an unborn fetus, thus her primary target is a
pregnant woman.
At night the appearance of the Manananggal transforms and her face reveals her wickedness.
She grows enormous bat wings, as black as tar.
But in order to fly she must leave behind the bottom half of her torso.
She flies undetected through the sky at night.
When she finds the house of her chosen victim, she lands on the roof and waits to enter the
house, when everyone inside is asleep.
The monster has a long, hollow tongue, ending in a sharp point which will pierce the mother's
abdomen, to gain access to the womb and the meat that the fetus will provide.
If the Manananggal cannot target a pregnancy she may feed from a man, using her pointed
tongue to draw his blood.
Then she must return to rejoin with the lower half of her body before sunrise.
If someone stumbles upon the lower torso before the Manananggal returns, it may be destroyed
by sprinkling it with garlic or with salt.
Then as the sun rises, the upper torso will burst into flame, or it can be dispatched
if it is struck from behind by a bolo machete, in a precise spot in the small of the back.
In the full light of day there are two ways to detect an Aswang.
Get near to them and look them in the eye.
Your reflection will appear upside-down.
If you fear to get that close, bend over and look at this person from between your legs,
upside-down.
If the person now looks suddenly different, they are Aswang.
There are ways to protect your home at night from invasion by the Manananggal.
If you stick a sewing needle in the door, it will prevent the Aswang from entering.
They are repelled by the burning of chicken feathers or rubber tires.
You will also be protected if you sleep with a knife under your pillow, or a carpenter's
nail.
The Manananggal is especially fearful of the tail of a stingray, which can be fashioned
into a whip.
The sound alone of the crack of this whip is said to repel them.
When the Manananggal feels that she is near death, she can pass her power to the human
being of her choosing.
There is a living chick inside her body, the color of coal.
Like a bird she regurgitates the black chick and it is transferred to the stomach of the
chosen one, where it needs to be fed.
This is what turns a human into an Aswang.
Historically the earliest territory of the Manananggal is recorded as Catanduanes.
But today the largest population of the beast is reported in the Visayan province of Capiz.
For those who are Brave, Capiz is also the place where one is most likely to see the
actual transformation of an Aswang.