1.) De La Salle — College of St. Benilde
The setting: An evening class
In attendance: A professor, his students, and a creepy girl
The tale: It was the first day of the semester, and the professor called out the roll, trying to match each of his students’ faces to their names. When he had finished, he noticed that there was one person who had not been called: the girl dressed in a white shirt and jeans sitting at the front row directly across his desk. He asked for her form to check if she was enrolled in that class, but she stared up at him blankly. He repeated his question, and watched – along with the entire class – as the girl stood up and walked past him, straight through the blackboard.
Take note: Though there are many variations to this tale, the scariest thing about it is that there was nothing to suspect about the girl at first, until she actually walked through the blackboard. Imagine that happening on your first day of school!
2.) De La Salle University
The setting: The Chapel of the Most Blessed Sacrament
In attendance: The restless souls of murdered La Sallian brothers
The tale: Many a ghost story has been set in the La Salle Chapel, but among the most harrowing tales is the one about a girl who decided to enjoy some meditative quiet time there. After several minutes of sitting with her eyes closed and breathing evenly, she opened her eyes to see a shadowy figure in the middle of the chapel, moving very slowly towards her. She closed her eyes again and tried to utter a prayer while frozen in fear. But when she opened her eyes, she found that the figure had materialized completely: it was a priest with a bayonet in his gut and bullet wounds in his forehead.
Take note: The scariest thing about the La Salle Chapel ghost stories? Their origins are factual. During World War II, 16 Brothers and several families took refuge in the Chapel. All the Brothers and 25 of the civilians were massacred by Japanese soldiers. The DLSU’s official website even gives a date: Feb. 12, 1945.
3.) La Salle Greenhills
The setting: Class 2G’s room
In attendance: The entire class 2G, their adviser and a little boy sitting in
The tale: The class had been experiencing strange things in their room for a while–objects were rearranged; televisions unexpectedly shut down; computers misbehaved. Tired of being toyed with, the class decided to set up video surveillance to record what happened in the room at night. Only after a week of this did they find the cause of their troubles: in the recording, they saw a little boy around five years old limp into the classroom, circling it as if looking for something. He then disappeared in the video, only to return a second later–walking upside down, all the while approaching the camera lens. Some say that the doors slammed shut and the television and computer both fizzled out. They had to call in a technician to fix the appliances, but the students were all unharmed afterwards.
Take note: It’s rumored that to this day, the subsequent classes who take on the section “2G” still experience peculiar things.
4.) Ateneo De Manila University
The setting: The old Communications Department building
In attendace: A janitor, a security guard and a really mischievous something
The tale: The janitor, who had just finished cleaning the bathrooms, was about to lock up the building when a security guard asked if he could go inside to urinate. The janitor agreed and let the guard in. Minutes later, when the guard emerged, the janitor double-checked the second floor bathroom–and was met with the sight of the tile walls and floors covered in streaky handprints of human excrement. He ran back downstairs to confront the security guard, who was absolutely clueless. When the security guard turned to leave, the janitor was shocked to find another handprint, clearly pressed on the back of the guard’s white uniform.
Take note: The Comm Dept. is rumored to be Ateneo’s most haunted building, but most of the classes here have been moved to the newer Social Sciences building.
5.) Miriam College Highschool
The setting: Bathroom
In attendance: Four classmates, more or less
The tale: After their classes ended late, three friends went to the bathroom together. When three of them had emerged from the cubicles, another classmate entered the bathroom and greeted them. As the fourth girl was in the cubicle, the three decided to play a prank on her. They locked the bathroom and stood outside. In a moment they felt the doorknob rattle, and heard their classmate knocking and asking to be let out. They laughed and teased her as she begged them to open the door. When she started crying and howling at them to unlock the door, the three felt guilty and gave in. They opened the door to find no one in the bathroom. Again and again they called their friend’s name, but no one responded. Spooked, the three ran to the lanai. They found the fourth girl there, who was surprised when they demanded to know where she had gone. “Kanina pa ako dito,” she said. She hadn’t gone to the bathroom at all.
Take note: Bathrooms seem to be an especially prominent setting in ghost stories from all-girls schools. Often, these are haunted by nuns, creepy cubicle occupants, delinquent reflections and–in another story from this school–a ghostly head in the toilet.
6.) St. Pedro Poveda College
The setting: The “black garden” behind the chapel
In attendance: Ursula
The tale: Ursula is more than just a ghost story in this school; for young Povedans moving from primary grade school to intermediate grade school, she’s a rite of passage. Her spirit reportedly haunts the “black garden” behind the school chapel, where she supposedly killed herself. The accounts as to how she did it vary: some say she hanged herself from the big tree, others say she drowned herself in the garden’s well. Whatever the method and the reason, the challenge is to cross the garden’s walkway without looking back. If you do look back, it is said Ursula–a girl in her early adolescent years with long, wavy hair–will supposedly appear to you. What she will do with you is left to the imagination.
Take note: Ursula is ubiquitous in Poveda ghostlore, to the point that other hauntings and ghost stories are also “attributed’ to her.
7.) St. Paul Collge
The setting: A classroom
In attendance: Two girls
The tale: While waiting for her sundo, a high school girl decided to stroll the hallways after classes had ended. She passed a classroom where she sighted a lone student scribbling on the blackboard. She thought that, from the back, the student looked like a friend of hers, so she drew close to the classroom door. She gasped in fear when she realized that the student was floating a few inches off the ground. The noise made the student turn around, showing the girl its blank, featureless face and its handiwork on the blackboard: written in large, scratchy block letters were the words, “HELP, I’M IN HELL.”
Take note: In some versions of this story, the stranger in the classroom is not a student, but a faceless nun.
8.) St. Scholastica College
The setting: The physics lab bathroom
In attendance: A girl and something no one would want in the bathroom with them
The tale: One student wanted privacy while conducting her bathroom business, so she checked into a rarely frequented bathroom beside the physics laboratory. All the other stalls were empty when she came in, and she had heard no one enter, so she was surprised to find a pair of black shoes standing outside her cubicle door. They stood there, perfectly still, seemingly waiting for her to finish, even while the other cubicles were unoccupied. Slightly unsettled, the girl looked away from the shoes, shifting her vision upwards–only to find that a freakishly tall and ghostly nun was leaning on top of the cubicle door, leering at her with a sinister smile.
Take note: Whether or not the story is true, students from this school will agree that the bathroom beside the physics lab is truly unsettling: it has no mirrors, even though marks on the tile walls indicate mirrors had once hung there.
9.) University of the Philippines Diliman
The setting: Ikot jeep
In attendance: The jeepney driver and the last passenger
The tale: A trip in the iconic Ikot takes a turn for the terrifying in this story. A girl boarded a jeepney late at night, bound for one of the campus dorms. The driver said nothing when she told him her stop, but only met her eyes once in the rearview mirror. They trundled through the dark and silent campus, but the route he took was not one she could recognize. Afraid for her safety, she was wary throughout the ride, until the jeepney made a turn, and she found herself just across the street from her dormitory. Mildly shaken, she hurried to leave the jeep, but the driver stopped her, telling her that as soon as she got home, she should take off her clothes and burn them. He explained that he took a detour to ward off the evil spirit that must have been following her. “Pagtingin ko kasi kanina sa salamin,” he said, “wala kang ulo.”
Take note: The jeepneys that ply the campus even late at night are perfect settings for stories about ghostly hitchikers. In the UP campus, these jeepneys follow a specific color code: yellow roofs for the Ikot and Toki, red roofs for the Katipunan, blue roofs for those bound for SM North, and green roofs for those bound for Philcoa and Pantranco. If you find yourself in UP at a late hour and see a jeepney approaching, make sure it’s one of those colors. Otherwise, walk away. Very quickly. And don’t turn around.
10.) University of Santo Tomas
The setting: Hospital morgue
In attendance: A resident and a dead body or two
The tale: A UST doctor decided to ride the elevator down to the hospital morgue. There was only one other passenger inside. Noticing a patient trying to catch the lift, the doctor immediately shut the door. The other passenger asked her why she refused to wait for the patient. She explained that the “patient” was wearing a red band on his wrist and she’d been warned that only corpses wore such bands. The passenger approached him and lifted his arm. “Tulad nito?” he asked, showing the crimson tag dangling from his wrist.
Take note: Four hundred years old, and just plain old, the University of Santo Tomas is an easy target for ghost stories. In a 2006 article in the Varsitarian, History professor Jose Victor Torres explained that thousands of people have died in the University through the years—even before the campus was built. Other reported ghostly areas include the main building, Benavidez Park, and the Ossarium (a storage area for bones in the med building).
As for the corpse trying to catch the elevator? Well, he was just trying to hitch a ride to his home—the morgue. Perfectly understandable.
WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE MY LOVE OF URBAN LEGENDS/HORROR/ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING CREEPY
