AI illustration
Bal-Bal
In Ilocano belief, the bal-bal is an undead being that steals bodies from funerals and graves and eats them. It has a strong sense of smell for the dead, sharp claws and foul breath.
Folklore is retold; versions differ.
Sources: Wikipedia: Bal-Bal (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikidata (CC0)
The story
The bal-bal is an undead corpse thief in Philippine folklore. People in Ilocos and other regions describe it as a creature with a keen nose for the dead. Its claws and teeth can tear the clothes of a body. Because it eats only corpses, its breath is said to be foul. Writers often compare it to the vampire of European tales.
In the story, the bal-bal takes a body from a funeral or grave. Some tellers add a trick. It puts a banana tree trunk in the coffin, so the mourners think the body is still there. The trunk is the only clue. This same detail appears in tales of the busaw and the aswang, and writers list all three as related flesh eaters.
Written sources are thin. The Wikipedia article is a short stub with few citations, and it places the creature in Visayan stories, not Ilocano ones. No old record and no clear list of ways to protect a wake are known. Local tellers may know more.