There are more than 7,000 islands that make up the Philippines , and the former Spanish colony is home to 175 different speech communication and a wide-cut array of ethnical practice . But if there ’s one autochthonal feeling that outlast centuries of Spanish rule and uphold to obsess Philippine nightmares , it ’s the terrifying bogey piece known as theaswang .
The aswang does n’t have an accurate match in the westerly pantheon of monsters . Some people call it avampire , but it eat on more than just blood ( organs , unborn children , phlegm ) and it can take onalternate formslike a giant pig , a smutty heel or even a gentleman’s gentleman - sized vulture . Whatever shape it takes , the aswang is wide believed to be the source of sudden sickness , mystic deaths and other ill luck in the Philippines .
Believe it or not , back in theCold Warcraziness of the fifties , a CIA intelligence agent in the Philippines took advantage of aswang superstitions to scare off communist Rebel . Andhowhe did it — puncturing a victim ’s neck with two vampire - similar holes , hanging them from a tree and drain them of their origin — might have been even scarier than the aswang legend itself .
Aswang, the ‘Bringer of Awful Things’
Jordan Clark is a filmmaker and researcher who has devoted year to studying aswang lore in the Philippines . He runsThe Aswang Projectwebsite and calculate a documentary entanglement serial called " Creatures of Philippine Mythology . "
" The aswang is a very old cultural belief that mean something dissimilar to each region of the Philippines , " says Clark in an email . " The feeling that the aswang was the main bringer of awful thing was likely very prevailing before Spanish arrival . "
In 1589 , a Spanish friar named Juan de Plasencia document the endemic belief in " devils " and other demon in a account book call , " Customs of the Tagalogs " ( Tagalog is one of the chief languages spoken in the Philippines ) .
" The differentiation made among the non-Christian priest of the devil were as follows,“wrotede Plasencia . " … the eighth they called OSUANG , which is equivalent to ' magician ; ' they say that they have ascertain him fly , and that he remove men and ate their flesh . "
The vampiric , humanoid physique of the aswang lurks on rooftops at night and can lower its long , proboscis - similar glossa through a " lick hole " in the ceiling . The aswang is believed to place particularly vulnerable dupe like pregnant women and children , either by suck out their inside with its prehensile knife or infecting them with a deadly disease .
Clark say that feeling in the aswang is strongest in neighborhood of the Philippines that were heavily influenced by Hinduism before the Spanish arrival , and that other regions have their own animist explanations for illness , stillbirth or decease .
" It was a path to explain such occurrences and enlist the aid of a priest-doctor to use lifelike remediation and ritual to heal the someone and vanquish the undesirable emotional state , " say Clark , who says that belief in the aswang can still " wreak havoc " in rural pocket of the Philippines , even run to the occasional " Wiccan Holman Hunt " for the say perpetrator .
Enter Ed Lansdale, Ad Man Turned CIA Agent
Before the outbreak of World War II , Edward Geary Lansdalewas a San Francisco - based advertising sensation with clients like Levi Strauss , Wells Fargo and Nestlé . When America enrol the war , Lansdale joined the Army like hundreds of thousands of patriotic GIs . The Army distinguish Lansdale ’s talents and recruit him to the Office of Strategic Services ( OSS ) , a precursor to the CIA .
Lansdale capitalise on his advert experience to become a pioneer of " psychological operation , " the targeted use of propaganda , medium and marketing strategies to win support for the allies and demonize the foe . When WWII was over , the U.S. government need Lansdale ’s particular skills to overcome a young enemy : the Soviet Union and its communistic intelligence officer in Southeast Asia .
In 1950 , Lansdale arrived in the Philippines as ( officially ) an Air Force officer and adviser to the Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay . What Lansdale did n’t print on his line bill of fare was that he was really working for the CIA .
Lansdale was assigned to the Philippines because Magsaysay and his U.S.-backed regime were fight down a protracted warfare against communistic rebels know as the Huks ( pronounced " hooks " ) . During WWII , the Huks were a grand Philippine army that fight the Japanese ( their full name in Tagalog wasHukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Haponor " the People ’s Anti - Japanese Army " ) . But after the state of war , the Huks and their leader , Luis Taruc , fail with the government over the controversial Philippine Trade Act of 1946 , which pass the American government " adequate rights " to the Philippines ' natural resource .
The Huks had legitimate complaint , since the " costless " election in the Philippines wererigged by U.S. operativesand the CIA also controlled the Philippine " spare printing press . " But to hear Lansdale explain it in his memoir , " In the Midst of Wars : An American ’s Mission to Southeast Asia , " he was sent to the Philippines to protect the democratically elect government from dangerous communist maverick .
" My orders were plain , " wrote Lansdale . " The United States politics wanted me to give all help feasible to the Philippine government in end the attempt by the Communist - led Huks to overrule that authorities by forcefulness . My assistance was to consist chiefly of advice where require and desired . It was up to me to figure out how unspoiled to do this .
" Conventional military valet imagine of scrap psywar almost exclusively in term of booklet or broadcasts appealing to the enemy to surrender , " he continued . " Early on , I realized that psywar had a wider potential than that . "
The ‘Eye of God’ and Other ‘Psywar’ Tactics
Lansdale and his CIA squad arrest busy doing a military version of " mart research , " agree to William Blum , author of " Killing Hope : U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II . "
" Lansdale ’s squad conducted a careful study of the superstitions of the Filipino Goth live in Huk country , " wrote Blum , " Their lore , taboo , and myths were examined for clues to the appropriate appeals that could wean them from supporting the insurgents . "
According to Blum , one of Lansdale ’s tactics was to take flight over Huk - controlled area in a abstemious aircraft and broadcast " mysterious curse word " in Tagalog on any villager who offer help to the Huk soldiers . " The tactic reportedly succeeded in starving some Huk units into yielding . "
In his memoir , Lansdale gas about an improvised routine of homemade hoodooism he called " the eye of God . " It was base on a WWII psywar tactic of learning the epithet of individual German military officer and announcing on the field of honor over speaker system that they would be the next to die if they did n’t surrender . Lansdale ’s twist was to paint a qabalistic symbol he called the " middle of God " outside the homes of suspected Huk sympathizers .
" The mysterious front of these evil eyes the next morning had a aggressively sobering effect , " write Lansdale .
Blood-sucking CIA Agents
But Lansdale was clearly majestic of his most brazen and crashing psychological war operation in the Philippines . allot to Lansdale , a Huk squadron had set up camp on a hill outside of a village . The village leader claim that the Huks imperil to kill any Greenwich Village " bigwigs " who did n’t get together .
Lansdale mail in a CIA - trained " combat psywar team " with percipient didactics . First , the Filipino psyops agents were to plant storey among the villager that an aswang was ghost the James Jerome Hill where the Huks were camped . Then after a few 24-hour interval — enough time for the rumors to penetrate the Huk camp — it was time to walk out .
Here ’s how Lansdale describe the operation in his own words :
To be open , a CIA - trained police squad of Philippine soldiers kidnapped Huk fighter and kill them vampire - elan , leaving their bloodless corpses behind . Clark of The Aswang Project thinks that ’s pretty messed - up .
" To me , this is a beastly and awful scene with or without the aswang lore , " read Clark . " It ’s not even clear if the Huks believe it was an aswang killing the people or if they were dismay at the sacrilege of the deceased by the CIA - apprise troops . "
In his enquiry , Clark found that people in that region of the Philippines conceive in a creature call themanananggal , a self - section type of aswang that fed on the fetuses of pregnant women , not a Dracula - style origin - sucker .
" There was no ' vampire - like ' aswang lore in the realm , so I am questioning that this psywar maneuver even work , " says Clark , " other than the terrific visual of see your friend strung up like that . "
Clark alsopoints outthat the " aswang panic tactic " was apparently only used once to shift a Huk squadron of between 100 and 300 soldiers . It did n’t win the entire war . In the conclusion , though , the Huk insurgence was worn down by class of fighting the U.S.-backed regime . Luis Taroc , the Huk drawing card , surrendered in 1954 .
