The Horrifying Story of the Amil Brothers, the Filipinos Who Butchered and Ate Their Own Mother

Cannibalism, unfortunately, has existed in the Philippines for centuries. Paul de La Gironière’s best-selling mid-19th-century travelogue, which chronicled the French explorer's arrival in the country, yields insights into the gruesome practice. Here, the eye doctor detailed how he found himself in the mountain provinces in the north.

The Frenchman was said to have found the Tinguians of Abra, an ethnic group that reportedly had "brain feasts" with the heads of their enemies. This was tradition when their camp battled against a rival group. Tinguian girls would even pound the brains to make wine, although this remains somewhat debatable among other scholars.

But then again, more modern, well-documented cases of cannibalism have appeared as late as 2014. This includes the case of the Amil Brothers, one of the more horrific acts of violence committed in Ampatuan, Maguindanao. Moro siblings Dante, Paroy, and Ibrahim Amil reportedly slaughtered their mother and eat her insides raw in what was one of the more harrowing crimes committed in Maguindanao after the Ampatuan Massacre of 2009. At the time, it was argued whether or not the family was cursed.

The Story of the Amil Brothers

Residing at Purok Nabadtog in Barangay Kamasi, the three Amil siblings committed a ritual killing, believing that they were driving away the spirits that made their mother ill. The story goes that in February 2014, the family was heard roughhousing for a few days. Their neighbors started to have a funny feeling that something was not right. Screams were also heard coming from the home for days. Locals then went to the authorities, who then paid the family a visit. When they arrived at the household, the body of a middle-aged woman was recovered, one that was drained of its blood.

“One of her relatives said the victim’s eyes had been taken; her throat was slashed, and innards were missing. They said these appeared to have been eaten by the suspects,” local official Bai Suraida Mamaluba told News5 upon the initial results of the investigation.

The victim was identified as Akrima, the boy's mother. Suffice it to say that authorities at the time were horrified by their discovery. The boys' mother had been missing internal organs, innards, as well as her eyes. Then-Senior Inspector Ronald De Leon of the Ampatuan municipal police led the filing of the charges against the men.

Further results of the investigation found that the brothers had hogtied their mother and butchered her with machetes. They would then eat her body raw like a pack of "wild animals."

What's eerie is the fact that locals say that the siblings had been possessed by spirits, and that they had endured several rituals by the town's shaman.  It was also speculated that they were controlled by the devil, as locals put it. But the thing was: believing in superstition and mythology is illegal in Islam, which is the dominant religion in Maguindanao.

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The mayor of a nearby Datu Abdullah Sangki town, Anwar Emblawa, also claimed that the family had deep ties with folklore and that they were a "haven" for ghouls. Other residents in the small community noted that the Amil family was just cursed.

Residents in the town also said that the Amil brothers might have been part of the Christian extremist paramilitary group Ilaga. This group embraced a form of Folk Catholicism that believed in amulets and similar rituals.

Then there are groups who asserted that the Amil brothers might have been high on drugs. Considering that they didn't have any prior criminal records in the local barangay, it was a mind-boggling case. There had also been no history of mental health disorders that were prevalent among the clan members. Another wrinkle in all this is the patriarch of the family, who was interviewed during the investigation, too.

The crime also came during a time when the Ampatuan Massacre was still somewhat fresh in Filipinos' minds. On top of that, in May 2011, another case of cannibalism was reported in Tabuelan, Cebu. A man named Efren Matedios was arrested for stabbing and disemboweling his niece and later eating her internal organs. Matedios was later charged with murder. The same associations with folklore emerged: the suspect claimed he was only protecting the child from the dreaded mananaggal in the area. Locals of the town said the same thing, while others would go on to say that Matedios would be cursed as an ungo, or a monster in Visayan myths.

The Amil case eventually captured the attention of sleuths all over the world, including journalists from publications like the Huffington Post, New York Daily News, and others.

The case surprised even those who had been close to the family, who said that the brothers had a decent relationship with their mother. Nevertheless, the suspects asserted their innocence throughout the case, claiming that they were just saving their mother,  who had been sick for a few days leading up to her brutal killing. The Amil brothers believed that the atrocious act was the only way to cleanse their mother's spirit.

In the end, officials couldn't pinpoint the brothers' exact motivations. Was it drugs? Spirits? Curses? The Amil brothers were eventually detained and sent to prison for the crime. As of 2024, the last reports of the brothers' case date back to 2014. Not much is known about them today.