Cultists allegedly desecrated a dead baby's tomb to make amulets out of its body parts in the Philippines.

Graverobbers reportedly broke into the Barrio 4 Cemetery and prised open the concrete grave to steal the the remains of one-year-old Christian Carl Mamburao in Koronadal City, South Cotabato province, on March 29.

However, their plans were thwarted when the child's parents arrived, forcing them to flee as they left the dead body exposed.

In a harrowing sight for the parents, the infant's feet were left poking out from the gap in the tomb. His body then had to be removed to be checked by local officers.

Speaking to local police, grieving mother Chinelyn Mamburao said the family had visited the cemetery to pray on Good Friday when they noticed the hole in the tomb where the corpse's lower half was found protruding.

The seven-month-old baby had this month died of pneumonia and was buried on March 20. The family said they suspected cultists of the attempted theft.

The baby's grandmother Rossana Mamburao said: 'We were visiting because we wanted to light a candle and offer prayers, but we noticed the grave had been damaged and my grandchild's legs were sticking out of the tomb.

'They probably wanted to steal the kneecaps. But when we checked, the body was intact. Nothing was missing.'

Some superstitious villagers believe fashioning amulets out of a human patella granted them immunity to bullets and knives.

The Koronadal City Police Office, citing eyewitnesses, said in a police report that a group of men had been spotted entering the cemetery on Good Friday.

A search is ongoing to find who had vandalised the grave, which has now been repaired by authorities.

In a video in 2019, Filipino medicine man Angelito Oreta told how he he raids cemeteries to steal the knee caps of dead people. Angelito said he scours public cemeteries around his home in Muntinlupa, on the outskirts of Manila, to plunder the freshly dug graves.

Rather than stealing valuables, Angelito and his devotees 'knee-cap' the stiff corpses and use scalpels to extract the patellas.

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.

Followers believe that the blessed knee caps act like 'guardian angels' giving them protection from thieves and attackers in the country's drug-ravaged slums.

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.

'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.'