A Filipino medicine man has revealed how he raids cemeteries to steal the knee caps of dead people which then give him 'spiritual protection'. <br /><br />Angelito Oreta, who was interviewed on February 18, trawls the public cemeteries around his home in Muntinlupa, on the outskirts of Manila, the Philippines, to plunder the freshly-dug graves.<br /><br />Rather than stealing valuables, Angelito and his devotees 'knee-cap' the stiff corpses and use scalpels to extract the patellas.<br /><br />Medicine man Angelito, 55, then soaks the bones in coconut oil for several days to remove the skin while offering ''prayers and devotion'' to the spirits of their previous owners.<br /><br />Followers believe that the blessed knee caps act like ''guardian angels'', giving them protection from thieves and attackers in the country's drug-war ravaged slums.<br /><br />Angelito, who admits that the practice is illegal, said: ''They are the knee caps of the deceased. We get them from the public cemeteries, of course.<br /><br />''We don't know who they belong to. They're from different people. They are not my relatives but I offer prayers to them. They could protect my family.''<br /><br />Angelito also claimed that the spirits of the dead people who the knee caps once belonged to act as guardian angels because: ''You are feeding them with prayers.''
