Manananggal
by Julia Palmiano Federer | From Issue One (Fall 2025)
I am Manananggal.
The Aswang. The beauty by morning light, by the dawn, by the setting sun. The cruel monster at dusk–splitting into two at the waist. The top half, winged, membranous. The bottom half, waiting. Cleaved. They say I prey on innocents, stalking them while they sleep. The truth is, I cannot remember anything that happens between dusk and dawn. I only see the aftermath of what I leave behind. I cannot remember who I might have hurt, and how. It is a monstrous existence.
The days and nights leading up to the full moon are the worst. When I become the monster that wants to destroy itself and everything around it. When I want to completely self-destruct, blow up my beautiful life, and shoot all my seething rage into the person I love most.
The person I love most. We met while the sun was easing lazily into her perch behind the sea. I shone brighter than the afternoon sun, and they knew it. They told me that I was everything they wished for, and I was. In the morning, they grounded me in beautiful conversation, easeful and loving. In the afternoon, they grounded me in a way that my cleaved body never could. Stable, loving. For years, they had never seen me at night. I love them with my entire being–they are everything that I have wished for. One year later, I bore our children into the world, one right after the other. The next day, they saw me at night. I wish I could tell them this:
I am Manananggal.
Careful what you wish for. So flashed by beauty, you did not see what lay beneath. How do I explain that I am Most Beautiful and Most Terrifying, and they are both me? How can you also love the part of me that is the most monstrous? How can I love the part of me that is the most monstrous?
How do I explain that I became this way to bear our children into the world? A prophecy fulfilled, eve after eve. Our children are our most precious gifts. But at what cost? We know they are worth it. But now I am this. An endless, gruesome cycle. How can you find me behind my eyes, find me under my clawed, membranous wings, and tongue that rips into souls. Don’t you know that I am still there? Of course you do. Because you are still here. And I am worth it.
I am Manananggal.
When I split my body in two as the dusk emerges, I no longer feel cleaved. Inside, I feel whole. When I am her, I am voracious in my righteous anger. I soar under the soundless moon, raging until the dawn. Stuck, for endless cycles in this body, I understand now. I have accepted this destiny. How could I not have, when this existence has given me my loves? A weak sun rises. And then I am called back to my body. I see blood. I come back to myself, to her, fatigued but lucid. I look around to assess the damage. I remember nothing, but feel everything. I exhale and sit with myself. With her–a beauty.
I am a peace and conflict researcher and writer. My research interests include critical, feminist, and decolonial approaches to inclusive peace processes and unofficial dialogues. I am the author of NGOs Mediating Peace: Promoting Inclusion in Myanmar’s Nationwide Ceasefire Negotiations, published in open-access format by Palgrave Macmillan. I am exploring creative nonfiction and essays on mythweaving Filipino folklore and futures as a form of cultural reclamation.