In the Philippines, the aswang is a fiendish, supernatural creature that will drink the blood of an unborn baby. One night, my cousin was found unconscious on the ground. I think the aswang got him!!
When I was 10 years-old, we moved from the coastline town of Marina, California to Bacolod City, a little town on an island in the Philippines. While our new home was being built, we lived in the “big house” of my maternal grandparents, Lolo Pisyong and Lola Tilde. This was one of 3 big houses in the family compound. There were also 3 small houses and one small apartment building.
At the center of the compound is a small grove of tall, hardwood, santol trees about 50 years old or older at that time. They’re still standing to this day and are all getting close to being a hundred years old now.
Everyone who lived in the compound was related — cousins, aunts (titas), uncles (titos), grandparents (lolos and lolas), siblings, first and second cousins…
In the 70s, being that I and my brothers were young, wide-eyed and gullible, balikbayan kids, newly arrived from the States, my cousins eagerly shared their stories of local superstitions. They described aswang (blood-sucking monsters with extremely long straw-tongues), dwende (gnomes) that leave footprints on the ceiling, fairies that take you to their kingdoms and white lady…
