A Woman in Philippines Gave Birth to a Live Snake: Hoax

Story:

Breaking News: A woman in Philippines gave birth to a snake.

Other Versions

1. A Woman in South Cotabato Gave Birth to a Live Snake.

2. BREAKING NEWS: Woman Gives Birth to an Odd-Looking Snake-like Creature in Cotabato!

3. Woman gives birth to a terrifying creature that looks like a snake in Cotabato, Philippines!

4. Women bore snake in Koronadal, South Cotabato.

Picture about A Woman in Philippines Gave Birth to a Live Snake — A Woman in Philippines Gave Birth to a Live Snake

Analysis:

Various stories and pictures circulating heavily online come with a ‘breaking news’ that a Woman in Philippines gave Birth to an odd-looking Snake-like creature in Koronadal, South Cotabato. As detailed below, the claims are not facts.

Origin of Story

The story in question originated from a Facebook post of Bombo Radyo Koronadal, a local radio station, on 16 Feb. 2016. According to the post in Filipino language, a 37-year-old married woman from Koronadal City in South Cotabato has apparently given birth to the 2-foot long snake on Tuesday, February 16. It showed couple of pictures of the ‘Snake’ along with some pictures of the location where the married woman allegedly gave birth to it.

In an exclusive interview of the Radio station, the woman’s parents told that their daughter experienced pregnancy symptoms along with unbearable stomach pain, before undergoing pregnancy test and ultrasound scan in the hospital. However, they told that doctors were unable to verify if her daughter was indeed carrying a child, because its shape was unusual and had a long body. The parents then supposedly brought the woman to several faith healers one of whom was ready to remove what’s inside the woman’s womb. After undergoing a “treatment” with the faith healer for almost a month, the woman reportedly gave birth to the snake-like creature in front of her parents, relatives and several witnesses. The snake’s teeth was told to resemble that of Piranha’s, and the live snake was supposedly killed by the woman’s mother using a sharpened bamboo called a “bagakay,” before burning it. It is also said that the woman was shocked to see what she delivered and was recovering from the ordeal.

The Facebook post with the interesting story soon garnered thousands of shares and several websites caught the story, which is how it went viral on social media sites and YouTube as well. The people who were skeptic about the claim that a woman gave birth to a live snake thought it was simply a publicity stunt by the local radio station, Bombo Radyo Koronadal.

Picture of a Striped Eel Fish — Striped Eel Fish

Picture Comparison of Possibly Eel common in the area — Possibly Eel common in the area

The Facts Behind

Our study reveals that the Snake-like creature shown in the pictures could be some kind of Striped Eel (fish) like the ones shown in above three pictures. To match it, a Filipino news report of Aksyon 5 on News5Everywhere website news5.com.ph in Philippines (shown in video below) denied the rumors that the woman in Philippines gave birth to a snake, and that police investigation revealed the issue was allegedly raised to hide a crime, as the mother underwent “abortion” to hide a ‘fault’. The alleged snake born of the woman is possibly an Eel common in the area, as shown in the news report (screenshot above). Once the authorities started investigating into the matter, the woman who allegedly gave birth to the snake-like creature went into hiding. Her mother Aling Perla denied that they fabricated the story to hide the crime of abortion.

To conclude, a woman in Philippines did not give birth to any snake-like creature; what is shown in pictures is possibly a striped eel or such a fish common in the Koronadal area.