The Philippine Online Chronicles

An essential part of Philippine culture is having a ghost story or two in one’s arsenal, as well as being adamant against being matatakutin. As such, I’d like to present an easily-travelable list of the Philippines’ five scariest places— perfect places to visit for a chill down your spine even when it’s not Halloween.

Balete Drive

I list Balete Drive first, because 1.) I used to live there, and 2.) it’s less of a tourist destination than a drive by. Balete Drive is a short stretch of road in Quezon City, famous for the apparition of a white lady. The street was named such because of a former abundance of balete trees, which, according to old yaya’s tales, are the favourite resting spots of wandering spirits. According to popular stories, the while lady often seen by passers-by was a young woman who was brutally raped and killed by Japanese soldiers during the Second World War— whose corpse remained under the balete trees to be eaten by rats and carrion birds. A more modern re-telling of the story was that the white lady is in fact a teenage girl who was raped by a taxi driver in the 50’s in that area.

As a school serviced grade school student I was one of the fortunate ones who got picked up first by the bus. As such, I would frequently be driven in an empty bus through Balete Drive in 5am fog, and return home in the dark of night. I was never frightened of the white lady as I was certain that the bus’ metal bars would prevent anyone from getting in, plus I trusted our conductor to protect us from harm. I’ve recently heard that it was standard operating procedure for taxi drivers to avoid the street at all costs, particularly at night and in the early hours— but if they really had to, they should make sure the back seats were occupied and that no one should look back or look in any mirrors. Which is an excellent driving strategy, specially in low light conditions.

Corregidor Island

While the entire island day tour is in itself brilliant, budget-friendly, and frankly scary enough for people who can get scared in daylight, the best parts of Corregidor can only be experienced at night, either by booking an overnight stay at Corregidor Inn, which comes with the night tour, or by sneaking away from your tour group at some point and hiding in a cave til dark.

Understandably, Corregidor was the site of many deaths during the war, however one place in particular— Corregidor Hospital— is said to be the most haunted. This hospital housed many wounded soldiers, many of whom died within the hospital walls. The hospital was bombed during World War II, leaving it in ruins.

People have claimed to hear footsteps as well as sounds of patient coming from the wards. It doesn’t help that because of the extensive damage to the ceiling of the hospital, rain often gets in and pools on the ground, making for a bloody experience. One of the rarer ghosts that has appeared to tourists is a red-haired nurse wearing the uniform of the Red Cross. It’s said that she roams the halls looking for injured soldiers to tend to. Within the hospital, there is also a room where imprisoned Muslim mercenaries left their names on the walls before being killed in what would be known as the Jabidah Massacre. There is also a haunted Balete tree by the entrance of the hospital.

Manila Film Center

The Manila Film Center is probably one of the country’s more infamous structures. It’s said that when construction of the center was rushed for the 1^st Manila International Film Festival in 1982, the ceiling scaffolding collapsed, killing several workmen who fell into the fresh cement and vertical steel bars in the orchestra pit below. As the story goes, rather than suspend construction to rescue survivors and retrieve the bodies, then First Lady and patron of the arts Imelda Marcos was believed to have ordered cement to be poured into the orchestra, entombing the fallen workmen. Since then the monstrosity of a building is said to be haunted by voices of the workmen begging for a proper burial.

Baguio City

Aside from being a temperate-weathered refuge, Baguio is also known as one of the most haunted places in the country. During World War II, the seminary on top of Dominican Hill was host to the beheadings of numerous nuns and priests as well as the death of many refugees at the hands of the Japanese. Thus, in 1973 it was deemed the perfect location to set up a hotel. Guests and staff of the hotel reported that they saw headless apparitions wandering the halls and heard voices from inside empty rooms. Since the death of its owner, Tony Agpaoa, the Diplomat Hotel has been closed to the public though those living nearby talk of hearing banging and clashing sounds to this day.

The Philippine Military Academy is also a place for ghostly apparitions of the formation variety. According to Baguio locals, a ghostly platoon can sometimes be seen marching across the parade grounds. Another story exists, that of a cadet’s parade uniform left inside a locker with the owner of said uniform sometimes making a lone appearance.

Aside from these two places there are of course the American ghosts residing at the cottages of Teachers’ Camp, and the White Lady of Loakan, possibly related to the lady of Balete Drive.

Every single university in the country

Okay, so I cheated. This brings the list from five to five hundred. UP Diliman, Manila, Los Banos, Ateneo de Manila, Miriam College, La Salle— you name it they’ve seen it. There’s a ghost story in every single hall, building, and college of every single university in the country.

The UP-Ateneo-Miriam area is particularly notorious for being rice fields where hundreds of men and women were killed during the war. I remember rustling through cogon with a bunch of friends worried about stepping on skeletons of long dead rebels.

The scariest story that I’ve heard by far is the story of Diliman’s Vinzon’s Hall ghost. As the story goes, it was the end of the semester and a guy was waiting for his friend to meet him. As the ground floor was full of people, he decided to wait upstairs. As he was sitting in the corridor he heard a girl gasp for air. A few minutes later, his friend found him, and he asked him if he had heard anything. His friend laughed at him for being afraid. As the story goes, the first guy decided to relieve himself before leaving and sat down inside a stall. After some time he felt a breeze rustling his hair. He looked up and saw a girl hanging from her neck, white from the lack of air and her eyes bulging from their sockets. What was grazing his head were the soles of her hanging feet.

Ultimately the country has an abundance of spooky spots, you barely have to walk far out of your house to experience the supernatural. You might even be experiencing it right now.

Corregidor photo sourced from Christian Sangoyo of Digital Photographer, Diplomat Hotel photo from Hermie Martin of Profiling the Unexplained, some rights reserved.