”Maria Labo” Old story: Here is a common version of the Legend of the “Aswang”:
Maria Labo is from the province of Capiz. Maria Labo have a happy family she had a kind and loving husband and one son. Maria Labo was decide working abroad in England, for the sake of her family.
She had a good employer, who treated her well, but she did not know that here employer was a vampire. In the months she was employed, Maria was a combination maid and care giver to here employer. The employer of Maria would always provide her with half-cooked liver to eat.
After months of working for him, Maria began to feel sick. She did not know that she had ingested some blood of her vampire employer. Due to her unkown illness, Maria decided to return home to the Philippines, to live with her family.
The husband of Maria was a police officer. One day, after the husband returned home from work, Maria told her husband that she had already prepared dinner. Upon which time the husband of Maria sat down to the table and asked Maria, “Where is our son?“. To which Maria replied, “Our son is right there!“. The husband of Maria did not know what she meant. He was unaware that the meat he had eaten that day, was in fact their son!
Upon opening the refrigerator box, he was shocked to see the head of their son in the refrigerator. The husband of Maria was so angry, he picked up a big knife and slashed the face of Maria. Maria had big scar on her face, which is why she was called ”Maria Labo”.
From that day on, Maria would stalk or hunt in many different locations within the Philippines, but her husband continued to hunt for Maria because he wanted to kill her. Whenever Maria was known to be in any place within the Philippines, all or the people tried to find and kill her, to save their own children. From those days till the present, the Filipino people gave Maria the nickname of the “Aswang”, meaning Queen of the Vampires.
OLD BELIEFS
To this day, when Filipinos attend Fiestas in their province, they will not eat Dinuguan or Bofia or Atay (Liver). Or if they choose to eat, they will first put calamansi juice on the meat because it is believed you can see the true texture of the meat. They believe that the “Aswang” may trick them into eating Aswang or human blood and apply calamansi juice to the meat first so that they cannot be tricked, as Maria Lobo was by her vampire employer did to her. *Another belief is that if you look directly into the eyes of the vampire, and they will not look directly back into your eyes, that the individual may be an aswang.
aswang afraid in tail of pagi
aswang is also afraid of, and/or avoids calamansi, the case of a bullet, salt (asin), garlic (bawang), charcoal (uling), coconut stick (buko) or walis ting ting (bamboo broom).
It is also said that the Aswang is afraid of oil from the province. That they have use leaves and some natural woods that scare the aswang. If you use the oil you will see and know that they have Aswang in their place because the oil will boil right in the bottle.
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