Filipino Urban Legend: Maria Labo in our Culture

As Filipino our culture and tradition is quite unique, in my earlier article i highlighted the Filipino Mythical creatures like the"aswang" which was significantly part of discussions from generation to generation right?

My curiosity grows upon studying significant changes in Filipino culture during my Sociology class in which we had discussed the growing and evident changes in Filipino culture. But as time goes by there are still traditional belief that remains to be very popular and known to every Filipino and one of this is the urban legend of Maria Labo.

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Filipino Urban Legend



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"Urban Legends (also known as Contemporary Legends ) are modern folkloric stories or false information or representation which affects the lives of people in a particular country where the said story was told? Those are stories which are accepted by people as true whether the truth is known or not. Not all urban legend originates from false gossips, some of them came from real life story or the story of the urban legend itself is actually real. They become untrue once the story was outraged and exaggerated or added with excessive details."

Some Filipino urban legend pictures the result of Spanish and Japanese occupation. The horrors brought by maltreatment of the two nation became the main reason of a legend. One example is the white lady on Balete Drive. It was said, she died in the midst of World War II. The Japanese soldiers raped her in the same place where she haunts.But among the odss there was one very popular Filipino urban legend and that is the story of Maria Labo.

Who among you here don't know the story of don't know the story of Maria Labo? I guess majority of us knew her or have heard her creepy story.

Maria Labo: The untold

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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 unknown 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.

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Maria Labo: The Legendary Scar-Faced Aswang of the Philippines

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Among these , Maria Labo's story became very viral as young and old generation talk about her faith.The flash report of her crime inspired a radio drama and in 2015, she even become the subject of a film by veteran actor Roi Vinzon.

Maria Labo's story has spread across Western Visayas and "Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho" learned that people have added more details to the story. Some have seen her roaming villages, others claim that she's now a manicurist in Negros.

PO2 Ronsky Libo-on told KMJS that the authorities did not respond to or hear of a case of a woman hacking her kids to death.

Maria Labo in Main stream and culture

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Because of the hype of this urban legend, several study has been made as it reached the mainstream television with the different version of Maria Labo's story. a movies has been made and this mythical urban legend has been studied a lot in Literature as well.

Accordingly, the woman received a serious wound in her face, but managed to escape. Until today she is said to roam all over the Philippines in search of her next meal. In time this lady would be known as “Maria Labo” (labo is an Ilonggo term which means “to slash” using a bolo knife or itak) due to the large scar that make her a grotesque figure of nightmares.

Conclusion

Either we believe in it or not, Maria Labo and some urban legend have greatly affected and influenced our consciousness. We Filipinos have always been fond of the unknown and the supernatural, hence why we have so many urban legends pervading the country.

The Philippine urban legend stories focus mainly on paranormal creatures, business competition strategies, historical/famous figures, health issues, and western influences. These tales are similar to what Filipinos called as Kwentong Bayan, however, in a modernized way.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you have learn something about Filipino urban legend

Bibliography

• http://philurbanlegends.blogspot.com/p/list-of-urban-legends-contents-urban.html
• https://filipiknow.net/filipino-urban-legends/
• https://www.aswangproject.com/aswang-urban-legends-maria-labo-teniente-gimo/
• http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/lifestyle/content/631208/maria-labo-the-scarred-woman-who-preyed-on-the-children-of-iloilo/story/
• https://erwinc09.wordpress.com/tag/maria-labo/