Even the campuses in the Philippines are not spared from stories about ghost manifestations. Every walkway and building is a tale of disturbed ghouls and the stories of haunting have been handed down from generation to generation of students and faculty members. And despite technological advances, campus ghost stories have endured and evolved to make life a tad more interesting within the four corners of the school. What may sound interesting here is that even the considered country’s next batch of leaders or line of corporate big shots still believes in ghosts.

UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS, Manila

Lady in the mirror

Since the University of Santo Tomas is the oldest university in Asia, it does not exactly suffer from a dearth of ghosts stories. Here, there’s the story about a female student who at a very late hour went to one of the first-floor bathrooms of UST’s Main Building, that ancient massive building we see in the middle of the campus.

The student washed her face and as she looked up to the mirror, she saw the dark figure of a lady, and gasped. No one was in the room except her. Thinking a little divine intervention would help, the girl started praying the Lord’s Prayer. But midway through the prayer, she stopped. It seemed that somebody was praying with her, repeating the syllables of the prayer like an echo. When she looked at the mirror, she found that the black lady was still there, praying with her!

UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES, Quezon City

The Demon

A similar story is going the rounds of the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines. It is said that a male student went to one of the comfort rooms inside Palma Hall. Usually, bathrooms in Palma Hall have a rest area with benches that face a mirror. The student who, probably came too early for his class, sat on one of the benches and read up on the day’s topics.

After a while, the student fell asleep, still facing the mirror. After a few minutes, he woke up, gazed at the mirror, and was petrified. In his reflection in the mirror, a demon sat next to him. But when he looked beside him, he found nothing.

Scared out of his wits, the student closed his eyes and started praying the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name…” He was interrupted in mid-prayer when something touched his forehead.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the demon. And this time, it wasn’t just in the mirror. The being was now sitting beside him, pointing a finger on his forehead. Then the demon started doing something unheard of. Looking menacingly, the being started to mimic the student. It chanted, “Our Father, Who art in heaven, hollowed be Thy Name…”

COLLEGE OF SAINT BENILDE, Manila

Irregular student

A most interesting ghost incident took place at the College of Saint Benilde. Many of the people who swear the incident really happened are still in the school.

It all started when a certain marketing class started a new semester. Since CSB has block sections, everybody in the room already knew each other.

But on this first meeting in the new semester, the whole class noticed a new girl who sat in the back rows. The girl looked weird. Every piece of her clothing was black. Thinking she was just another irregular student, the classmates dismissed her and just went on with their work.

After two weeks of sitting silently in the back of the class, the professor finally spotted her and shot a question. With this, stood up and slowly walk toward the front of the class. Thinking the girl had a long recitation in mind, nobody in the class found what she did unusual.

But as she got near the front of the class, she started going through the class—literally going through the students like they weren’t there. And when she got to the podium, she went through the professor. She did this in plain sight of every student in the room. Then she went through the white board behind the professor and vanished.

Curtain call

In the middle of a UP Repertory theatre production at the Wilfrido Maria Guerrero Theater, a girl in tattered clothes suddenly went on stage and started weeping. The girl talked of heartbreak and sadness, which were not exactly parts of the plays plot.

But the crowd didn’t care. The girl gave such bravura performance that she was sent off with an ovation. The strange thing is nobody in the play’s cast knew the girl. And nobody knew how she got on stage. And at the end of the performance, it was announced that the girl’s part was not in the original story. A janitor later recognized the girl as someone who killed herself in the theater years ago.

Cavite National High School, Cavite City, Philippines

Montano Hall White Lady

GRADUATION DAY is the ultimate goal of every academic class, the fondest dream of most parents and the shining glory of responsible educators.

There were no happier then than the graduates of CNHS Class Batch 2003-2004 when each one of them was called by their names on the stage of Montano Hall Stadium in Cavite City to receive their diplomas. After the solemn graduation rites, come the souvenir shots. Posing with their parents, friends and relatives who witnessed the exciting ceremonies, the new graduates felt at least for a moment, that they were on top of the world.

But the spirits that linger at Montano Hall were not to be outdone. Blasted by the noise created by the event, they tried to make their presence felt in every way they can. Unexplained noises at the backstage, like moving of a chair or floating objects such as papers and ball pens and shadows of persons seen only to vanish in thin air immediately afterwards.

Enduring reports of ghosts’ disturbances at the stadium have echoed through the school’s concrete facade. The people, including its security guards who experienced the haunting have so much to say about it.

Reports of spine-chilling ghostly occurrences spread like wildfire in the CNHS campus and topped students’ conversations during their break times and class recesses. The teachers, who were informed of the eerie experiences preferred not to talk about it for fear of reprisal from school authorities. And since the stories about the appearances of the “White Lady” were wanting of evidence, many dismissed it as a wild rumor and would begin to simmer down in just a few days.

Up to this date perhaps, no one could ever show a proof of the existence of the Montano Hall ghosts except this writer who took the pictures personally. In fact, he was lucky enough to catch the scary image in different positions in many instances inside the Montano Hall Stadium. Based on these “captures,” it was observed that ghosts, like the living, are susceptible to being engrossed by noisy and lively activities in the vicinity where they hang around. And, they manifest in no definite time of the night or day, only, in a definite place.

Santa Cruz Elementary School

Laguna Province, Philippines

It was the annual Southern Tagalog Regional Athletic Association (STRAA) Meet where delegations of athletes from different schools in the region converge in an officially agreed location and undergo sports competition at various levels. In 2002, it was held in the spacious Santa Cruz Elementary School in Sta. Cruz, Laguna.

Back home, stories of scary experiences of players who participated in the STRAA meet in Laguna became part and parcel of their arrival statements for their relatives and friends who were too eager to hear what they have experienced in the last competition.

The most common among the “weird experiences” was the “items disappearing and reappearing phenomenon.” It’s the familiar experience of not being able to find a regularly used item – say, a hair comb, or a tooth brush – which you believe you placed in a spot you routinely place them. But they’re gone and you look high and low for them with no success. Some time later, that item is found – in exactly the place you normally put it.

It’s as if the object was borrowed by someone or something for a short time, then returned, but when they are, it’s in an obvious place that could not have been missed by even a casual search. Others experienced the feeling that they were being watched behind their backs. But when they looked back, there was no one there.

There were other participants who got sick while in the middle of the competition even blamed their sickness to the unseen forces in the meet venue.But for others, especially those who won and brought home medals, any weird experience that they have had while playing at the STRAA Games, were already immaterial and decided to keep it to themselves quietly. And so much for skeptics who only shrugged their shoulders off as a sign of disbelief.