Wednesday, August 22, 2007 Can cobra blood cure ailments?
BLOOD from the venomous cobra is an “alternative” for patients suffering from diabetes and other illnesses, if a “healer” from Mindanao is to be believed.
Reportedly popular in central and northern Mindanao, 35-year-old Roland Dacumos was invited to Cebu to share what a local lawyer calls the “miracle of the subterranean reptile.”
“Ang dugo ana maka-ayo sa daghang sakit, cancer ug sakit sa atay, (The cobra’s blood can cure many diseases including cancer),” said Dacumos.
So far, there is no scientific proof that cobra blood has medicinal properties. It is reportedly sold in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam as an aphrodisiac, but again no reputable medical journal has carried studies on whether it works or not.
In his “healing” sessions, Dacumos picks up a hissing cobra by the tail with ease, slides his hand to grasp its head and ties the reptile to a clothesline. He then cuts the snake’s tail and catches its blood in a glass.
He lets his patient drink the blood, mixed with liquor or softdrinks.
Aside from snake blood, Dacumos offers snake “wine” for those who cannot bear to drink the blood; “lana” or cobra oil extract; and liquor in which a cobra has been immersed.
He also brought along what he calls “Herbaluva” and “Dulaw” capsules derived from tree barks from Mindanao.
But according to him, cobra blood is best for those suffering from cancer, hepatitis, heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, stomach ulcer, kidney ailment and arthritis.
Drinking a cobra’s blood can even cure epilepsy, a congenital disease, said Cebuano lawyer Pepito Suello, a “convinced patient” who brought Dacumos to Cebu.
Born in Kitaotao, North Cotabato where he later built a small chapel, Dacumos is known as “Roy King Cobra.”
Suello invited Dacumos, a member of the Moncado Alpha and Omega World Peace Crusaders and of the auxiliary arm of the Philippine Army’s 38th Infantry Battalion 6th Infantry Division, to offer alternative cures in Cebu.
Before Dacumos extracts the snake’s blood for his patient, he slices the cobra open and examines its internal organs. The condition of the snake’s organs is a reflection on the patient’s health condition, he claimed.
He demonstrated this to a local reporter and “predicted 80 percent” of the reporter’s possible ailments.
When Dacumos untied a sack of cobras, all those around him froze briefly, then moved back.
Silence prevailed as he pulled a snake out, after which everyone screamed and ran in panic when one snake slithered away from him.
A television camera man, during an interview, fled and left his camera rolling. His reporter froze on top of a small table when one cobra slithered in his direction.
Dacumos calmly tapped the head of the cobra.
He was told that when he was still in the womb, a cobra always crept beside or on top of his mother. When he reached 17, he was told that he had a snake for a “twin.”
His interest in snakes, specifically cobras, grew and he started catching these creatures to “heal” people by urging them to drink the blood or bile of cobras.
Dacumos, however, has no training in medicine or health care. (OCP)
