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Haring Bakal (Iron King).

 

 

A few days later I received following pictures through email. Liza, the girl who was hacked with a samurai sword, took some pictures of her legs. 

Haring Bakal (Iron King).

 

 

 

Haring Bakal (Iron King).

 

 

 

 

The following video was taken by Dennis Villegas. 
 

Haring Bakal (Iron King).

 

 

 

 

Haring Bakal (Iron King).

 

 

 

Haring Bakal (iron King).

 

News of Haring Bakal members' ability to ward off bullets and knives has led to a significant increase in membership. Especially eager to join the Haring Bakal are military and police personnel whose lives are always in danger. Today, estimates of Haring Bakal’s membership throughout the Philippines range from 300,000 to one million.

Members strictly adhere to a code of ethics requiring them to protect, not to harm, people. Violators are expelled. Some of those expelled later formed their own organizations and adopted some of the rituals and practices of Haring Bakal. Thus, it is not easy to determine overall membership.
(source: Mr. Licauco)

 

 

Haring Bakal (Iron King).

 

Once a person has been properly blessed by an authorized "blessor", he becomes a member of Haring Bakal. He will then receive a prayer to be said every day.

Every new member recites the Oath of Allegiance that says, among other things, he will "love God and obey His commandments, instil the spirit of Christianism and to serve and defend my country without mental reservations."

(source: Mr. Licauco)

Haring Bakal (Iron King).

As a general rule for the different Haring Bakal groups the organization aims to protect the weak and those whose lives are threatened by dangerous elements, to fight evil and help the government. To be protected, one has to join the brotherhood. A member has to be blessed. The blessing includes being hacked with a very sharp bolo or a sword several times in different parts of the body.

The number of times one gets hacked determines his ranking or status in the brotherhood. Initially one gets six strikes, later 21, then 36 and finally, 57, for a total of 120. The 36 strikes include the nape and the 57 strikes include the two sides of the neck as well as the head.
(source: Mr. Licauco)

 

 

 

 

 

Haring Bakal (Iron King).

 

I was introduced to different Haring Bakal groups by photojournalist and researcher Dennis Villegas.

The first Haring Bakal group I visited  is from Tondo (Manila) while the second group has it's headquarters in Tacloban, Leyte.

To be able to document the Haring Bakal I had to become a member first and I had to undergo a painful hacking of 21 strokes with a sharp bolo.

 

 

This is me undergoing the hacking with a bolo.  

Haring Bakal was founded during the 1970s during the martial law years when civilians were recruited into militia groups.  The formation of civilian militias was part of a general process of militarisation that took place in rural areas across the country throughout the martial law period. They were used to counter the insurgency operations of communist and Muslim rebels (CPP-NPA or New People’s Army—the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines—and MNLF or Moro National Liberation Front), or as instruments of terror against rural populations, depending on one’s point of view.

Haring Bakal was led by Feliciano  Luces who went by the nom-de-guerre  of Commander Toothpick. Luces came from Pikit near Cotabato in Mindanao, and originally fought for the MNLF. He had a reputation as a fearless fighter. However, after a lengthy gun battle with government troops in which he reputedly ran out of ammunition and resorted to hand-to-hand combat, he was eventually captured and taken to Camp Aguinaldo for interrogation.  He was held there for seven months during which time his captors were allegedly unable to break him. He was then taken to Malacañang Palace in Manila where he personally surrendered his gun to President Marcos. In return, Marcos gave him an amnesty. Luces was thus transformed from a guerrilla at the margins or periphery of the state into a military asset of the Marcos régime.

Haring Bakal was created with the specific intention of taking on the CPP-NPA in central- southern Luzón, and Luces was recruited as the group’s leader. The military provided Haring Bakal members with money and weapons and other logistics, aiding them in their so-called counter- insurgency operations. Luces himself provided group members with a technology of the body that would enable them to go fearlessly into battle. Members undertook an initiation ceremony and would have to endure their bodies to be struck twenty-one times by bolos (a machete).

(source: Paul-Francois Tremlett)