SAN JOSE, Camarines Sur---A grisly tale of ‘aswang’ haunts a village here after the remains of a 16-year-old boy, missing for two weeks, from May 12-27, were found without hint of flesh, a former village official revealed Monday.

        Jose Dizon, 54, former village chief of Tominawog, San Jose, Camarines Sur claimed the suspect Eddie Dizon told them during the investigation of the village police that he strangled with his arm, using all his strength, the neck of victim Jerson Dizon, and collected the victim’s blood and flesh in plastic bag which he stored together with the ingredients to cook the native cuisine dinuguan.

        The village is about three kilometers from the town center here going eastward and cradled in rice fields with dots of coconuts.

        Jose further claimed that Eddie even boasted that it was Jerson’s mother who cooked the dinuguan served during the barrio fiesta on May 14.

        He said Jerson’s mother Bernardita Dizon, 48, was then helping Eddie’s mother Nida Dizon in the suspect’s kitchen.

        But Nida laughed off the allegations that her son Eddie brought home human blood and flesh on the night of the fiesta in their village. She said there are lots of talks going around the village since his son is being suspected as Jerson’s killer. She added they butchered a pig during the fiesta to feed their visitors.

        She said she was not aware whether his suspect-son was around the house or not on the night Jerson was missing, because she said she was too busy to notice.

        Nida bared Eddie was almost killed when he was a toddler because his head and face were accidentally scalded with boiling water that caused extensive third-degree burn and left ugly scars.

        She said his son would sometimes talk to himself and suddenly burst into laughter with no apparent reason for the past days before the 16-year-old boy, who was last seen in their house, went missing.

        Nida said he has surrendered Eddie to the authorities early this week and at present they would just wait for whatever action the authorities and parents of the victim would take against her son if found guilty.

        Eddie-Rol Bantog, village chief of Tominawog, said that suspect Eddie has been acting strangely after the young boy had unwittingly admitted to some villagers that he killed Jerson after the remains were discovered under a pile of dirt beside a creek by certain Bobby Respeto.

         Bantog said that the suspect would go around the village in the dark of the night like an ‘aswang’ which brought fear among the villagers.

        He said they have turned over Eddie to the authorities to secure his safety and of his villagers.

        SPO1 Mario Corral said the suspect, with the consent of his parents, has already been allowed by court to be confined for safekeeping with a waiver until a formal case is filed against the suspect.

        Corral said they have advised the parents of Eddie to get a lawyer to defend his rights.

        In a brief talk with the suspect who was inside prison Tuesday, he denied being an aswang and “explained” that he was in prison to be “disciplined” of the bad things he had done.

        Obviously very upset and still in tears recalling the fateful incident, the victim’s mother Bernardita said he last saw her victim-son alive at dusk of May 12 after she finished cooking for Nida and had dinner with her relatives together with her sons Jeric, the younger one, and Jerson, the older one, who were with her.

        She said that when they left the suspect’s house it was about to rain so Nida called them up to get some plastic sheet to shield them from the rain. As they left, her son Jerson failed to catch up so she asked Jeric, the younger son to walk back and find out where Jerson was but came back without his brother.

        Bernadita suffered sleepless nights and on the night Jerson went missing she went around the village three times.

         She said she went back to the house of Nida two days later and was supposedly told by the latter “she must not worry because she has other children.”

        Nida denied she told Bernardita not to worry because the latter has other children.