By Yvette Tan
It’s no secret that the University of the Philippines is haunted. The institution is old and has seen many lives pass through its hallowed halls—some of them choosing to stay behind.
Every campus has its own set of iconic ghost stories. The Carillon reached out to students and employees from UP Diliman, Los Baños, Manila, and Visayas for ghost stories from their respective campuses and the response was phenomenal, to say the least. While it would have been fun to include all the stories, there’s a word count to follow, so this article will be limited to one story from each campus.
UP Diliman – A Doppelganger in Bartlett Hall
Haidee C. Pineda, a longtime employee of the UP Diliman Information Office (UPDIO), talks about her experience in the UPDIO’s first location, Bartlett Hall, which used to be a storage area in the College of Fine Arts. Even before her supernatural experience, Pineda was no stranger to the many spooky stories told by her colleagues about their encounters with the unknown. She herself never experienced anything, until one morning in 2004, when she arrived at the office early and ran into her coworker, Kuya Joey. He was wearing a dark green polo, black pants, and boots with a very distinctive design. Pineda greeted her coworker “good morning,” but didn’t receive a reply. Instead, he sat at his desk, which was directly across hers.
She chalked it up to him getting off the wrong side of the bed and began to check her mail as the rest of her co-workers began to trickle in. She heard the door open behind her and turned to look at the newcomer. To her surprise, Kuya Joey stepped through wearing a light brown polo, black pants, and black leather shoes. He greeted her with a jovial, “Good morning! You’re here early!”
Pineda immediately turned to the figure across her. He had her back to her but he was still there: dark green polo, black pants, boots. Her blood ran cold. She asked Kuya Joey if he had arrived before her. He replied that he had just gotten in. She dragged him to his desk, but the man from earlier had disappeared.
UP Los Baños – Charles Fuller Baker Memorial Hall
Set along the foot of mystic Mt. Makiling, UP Los Baños, popularly known as Elbi, is known for its proximity to nature. And because of Mt. Makiling’s reputation as a supernatural hotspot protected by the mountain’s namesake Maria Makiling, as well as its past as a Japanese interment camp, Elbi has its own fair share of supernatural stories and urban legends as well.
The Charles Fuller Baker Memorial Hall is one of the oldest buildings on campus, and is used to hold events or some PE classes. It is also said to have been the main building of the Japanese interment camp. Figures walking around at night have been reported, as well as of a huge dark human shape with red eyes peeking out from one of the building’s windows. There is also a story about a passer-by seeing a full-blown party attended by people in period clothing. The building’s reputation is enough to deter most students and employees from walking near the area at night, for fear of seeing people who aren’t really there.
UP Visayas – UPV Main Building
GC T. Castro of the UPV Office of Alumni Relations sent in a story about UPV’s Main Building, with sources from various UPV personnel. Construction of UPV’s Main Building began in 1931. It served as the Iloilo Municipal Hall and then as Iloilo City Hall in 1935, before being used as a concentration camp from 1942 to 1945 under the Japanese occupation. It was donated to UP in 1947 to open UP College Iloilo, now the Iloilo City Campus of UP Visayas.
It’s said that one room on the north-east side of the building used to hold three prison cells where many Filipino and most probably American prisoners were tortured by their Japanese captors, and it was possible that some of their bodies were buried in the area. Accounts say that in as early as the 1950s, people were still finding bones scattered across the main building. To this day, UPV employees continue to report strange activity in the building that range from unusual sounds such as a chair being dragged across the floor, doors closing, heavy steps on the stairs, the sound of newspaper pages being flipped, and even human voices that range from from soft cries coming from nowhere to actual mimicking of voices of co-workers.
One personnel who has been working in UPV since the 80s claimed that he’s seen the source of the sound of the chair being dragged—a pained human figure in ragged clothes with a ball and chain clamped to one ankle. He said that the sound was made by the figure dragging the ball and chain as it walked through the halls of the building.
UP Manila – Calderon Hall
UP Manila, the original and oldest site of the UP System, carries with it a rich tradition of haunted tales that have persisted through the years. Forensic pathologist and current chair of the Department of Pathology Raquel Fortun tells a story of her own: “I had a mezzanine office in the Department of Pathology (incidentally beside the lobby Admissions just separated by a wall) from 1995 when I returned from forensic pathology training, until 2018 when we renovated. I did not really pay attention to unusual sounds (for example small objects like coins or buttons would seem to fall on the wooden floor but nothing was there) and occasional feelings of uneasiness. I did not think the place was haunted until a guest (TV journalist) once waited there looking at my books. She later insisted there was a small girl at my desk, she asked was she my daughter? It took some time before I understood what she was trying to say and clarified my daughter was not with me that day and if she was she’d be in school uniform. The girl she saw wasn’t. Since then I’d be wary of kids in the department, I would touch the child’s head and ask our secretary if she sees him or her too.”