Maria Labo, the scarred woman who preyed on the children of Iloilo

Loud thumping breaks the evening calm and wakes Gina. The visibly pregnant woman instinctively clutches her midsection as she scans the room. She shakes her husband Jomari out of sleep as the pattering continues outside their home.

The hut creaks as though someone was scaling the roof and as Gina's attention lands on the window, she catches a figure of a woman.

As Jomari takes his bolo and tries to pierce the intruder through the nipa, Gina wraps her arm around her unborn child.

Could it be Maria Labo on the roof?

The woman with a scar on her face

Young kids in small towns across Western Visayas are warned against staying out too late. Some children run from the fields to their homes come sunset for fear that a woman with a large scar on her face will take them.

They learn about her from their parents, who talk of a woman who left the country and came back frighteningly different.

The story starts with a young couple, Maria and Damien, living in a small town in Western Visayas. Damien was a police officer and Maria was a homemaker who looked after their kids, Toto and Inday.

Though happy in their humble home, they struggle to make ends meet. The desire to provide a better life for her family prompts Maria to apply for a job in Dubai.

She returns years later, much to Damien's delight, and things seemingly return to normal even as terror seems to strike the town.

A body of child turns up, shocking the people in the community. There is a hole in his abdomen and his insides have been torn out.

This causes Damien to worry when his own children don't come to greet him one afternoon. As he is searching, he finds his wife battering a chopping block with her cleaver as she furiously minces pieces of meat.

She pays the same amount of attention to him as the blood splattering on herself as she chops. Damien continues to search as Maria begins to cook.

"Naririnig mo ba ako? Nasaan ang anak natin?" Damien asks, to which Maria responds, "Kumain ka muna… masarap itong inihanda ko para sa iyo…"

Maria dotes on her husband, encouraging him to stop looking for the children and enjoy the meal she prepared first. She leaves him to eat to inspect something outside and as soon as she leaves, sobbing from under the table draws Damien's attention.

He finds their son, Toto, curled up on the floor and staring at the refrigerator. Damien hurries to his feet to find out what the young boy is looking at and as he throws the refrigerator door open, it becomes apparent that all is not well with his wife.

Hacked limbs from little children are crammed inside the fridge and Damien recognizes one hand as Toto's. He races to their baby's cradle and grows cold when he finds it empty.

Damien takes his bolo and looks for his wife. He sees her just outside their house, crouched over something he cannot identify just yet.

In her mouth, he discovers as she turns to face him, are the viscera of an infant.

The world dims and all Damien could do was strike her face — leaving a scar.

Maria becomes an urban legend in the region, her name derived from the Ilonggo work for hack: "labo."

The facts behind the fiction

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.

"Base po doon sa check naming record mula 1999 hanggang 2002, wala po kaming nakitang report na kahalintulad doon sa sinasabi ninyo na mayroong babae na tumatakbo papuntang tubuhan na may dala-dalang bata at saka pumatay po sa mga anak," Dibuon declared.

Kagawad Lovella Palma of Barangay Akwit, Barotac, Nuevo — where Maria and Damien allegedly lived — similarly denied that such a horrifying crime occured in their town.

"Dito sa barangay kasi 'pag may isang balita, halos lahat ng tao nagkaalaman kasi 'yong balita dito 'pag sa barangay nangyari, alam talaga ng lahat," Palma said. "Pero in our case, sa ganyang istorya, hindi po namin talaga nalaman at saka hindi po nag-exist dito sa aming barangay."

She may not exist in records, but for many people who have heard her story...she lives on. Lurking and waiting to pounce on unsuspecting children. — AT, GMA News