School Spirits: UP Los Banos

I went to UP Los Banos for college not knowing about its great historical significance. I only knew that I was going away to school much like what I see in those teeny-bopper Hollywood movies where there’s a big campus with lots of greenery and I was going to live in a dormitory with other students. People forgot to tell me that with old universities come ghost stories too.

UP Los Banos has a reputation for being one of the most haunted places in the Philippines just like Baguio. But stories of the supernatural doesn’t just stem from its dark World War II past and the atrocities connected with it. UPLB’s proximity to the forests of the Makiling-Banahaw-Cristobal mountain range also lends to some uniquely Filipino “traditions” of other-worldly creatures.

Baker Hall, our ancient campus gymnasium used to serve as a concentration camp of sorts during the Japanese Occupation. Oldtimers explain that many prisoners-of-war were housed in the universities during WWII. Those who couldn’t fit anymore into University of Sto. Tomas in Manila were transferred to UP Los Banos, then simply known as the UP College of Agriculture. A friend once told me a group of them took shelter there during one downpour and suddenly they were engulfed by an unbearable stench as if from rotting bodies. They all scampered away in various directions. Other students said they saw dark figures peering from the windows at night when there was no one else there. Vanguard members, those ROTC officers, who used to do their early morning jogs around Baker Field (UPLB’s version of Sunken Garden) once spoke of encountering a troop of Japanese soldiers in the mist during rainy season as a slight drizzle falls. 

At the nearby Men’s Dorm which is actually a co-ed dorm with three of its five units dedicated to girls instead of boys, students report of hearing strange knockings on their doors and underneath their beds, footsteps on the stairs when there’s really no one coming down or going up, and seeing floating candles or black coffins on top of the long study tables in the hallway. I myself experienced weird knocks on my door during summer classes when there were less people in the dorms. My roommate at the old Unit 2 decided to go home to nearby Calamba and left me alone for the weekend. I would hear slow, big-gapped knocking that often comes in two’s instead of the consecutive three’s “real” people are used to doing. Sometimes the door would slowly creak open even when I was sure I pushed it close and locked it. I had to ask my sister Giselle, a graduating High School senior then, to accompany me then or I would go crazy.

When I finally transferred to the slightly “newer” Unit 3 and inherited the “sorority room”, I still experienced getting knocks under my bed even when Giselle, who slept underneath me wasn’t around. Now our double-decks weren’t really connected; they were bolted directly to the cement walls, and even with the adjoining room’s beds, no amount of shaking would make you feel the other person because our beds were “heavy-duty”. They told me I was still lucky because other dormmates complained of getting shaken in their beds as if in a bad earthquake. I would soon learn this was true when years later my other sister, Gayle who was then a freshman, experienced it herself during a daytime nap. She said she had a late night gimmick with her friends and got sleepy during the day. In between classes, she returned to the dorm to catch a few hours of sleep. She said she suddenly awoke because her bed was violently shaking. Gayle came home to Quezon City early that week and even caught a fever because of her fright.

The scariest Men’s Dorm stories by far were narrated by those in the second floor. Beside us in Unit 3 was the old YMCA building which housed only boys. There was also a shortcut trail that lead up to the newly-built VetMed dorm at our back. During one Finals Week, the girls were studying in the hallway long tables when they saw a woman in white pass by the window. They speculated that she was on her way to visit a boyfriend at the YMCA. Some of the manangs snickered and commented why would she go visit him in her nightgown. They suddenly caught themselves when they realized that it was really late at night and that they were at the second floor…which means the lady in white was actually floating by the window. The other girls in Unit 5 said what floats by their window was a woman in black with a really frightening expression on her face. Students connect her with the big tree on that side which also faces the Women’s Dorm. Students residing at VetMed dorm and at SEARCA dorm pass by that stretch of dirt road between Men’s and Women’s Dorm and also report seeing a black lady near that ominous big tree.

For all its worth, even with that low, moaning sound I heard one night I was reviewing for an exam and which made me jump  my bed in one big leap, I was lucky never to have seen anything. A sorority sister who once lived at VetMed Dorm as a freshman couldn’t believe a newly-built dorm could be haunted. Most of us go home to the city during weekends, but a few remain, saving their allowance money or simply catching up with schoolwork. Tracy was a sorority neophyte then and used her weekend to catch up on sleep and rest, besides schoolwork. She said it was daytime and she was sleeping when suddenly the room got all windy and cold even when all windows were closed. She hugged her pillow against her face, afraid to see anything, but someone or something started to pull her pillow away from her. Tracy said she managed to peek at the floor and saw a pair of men’s shoes and dark pants. She gripped her pillow tight and started to pray. After what seemed like a lifetime, everything stopped and it was quiet again. Apparently, there was an electrician who got electrocuted there when the dorm was still being built. 

Further off, up the hills beyond VetMed dorm and the Animal Science enclosure, was Cooperative Dorm. This dorm was made up of whole cottages with several rooms and were just for boys, preferably upperclassmen who could no longer be governed by curfews. My friend, Alvin shared the story of one of their fellow boarders. He was a senior, a graduating BS Agriculture major. He was already doing his thesis and was an active member of the campus dance troupe. The  guy seemed pretty well-adjusted when Alvin introduced him to me. A few weeks later, Alvin said they see him as if talking to someone by a tree near their cottage. Later, they said his classmates complain he seemed agitated in class, mumbling to someone about why he is being stalked and bothered. When they confronted him, Alvin said he told them about a pretty lady from the tree who has been following him around, wanting him to join her, and telling him she will never let him go. His family eventually pulled him out of school. Alvin says for his sake, they should have taken him to an arbularyo for a good-old tawas to drive away the unwanted attention from that other-worldly being. We never did find out what happened to him because he was never able to graduate.

Besides Baker Hall, TV shows have featured the mysterious bridge at the back of our Main Library known for its strange shadows and why it unexplainably gets longer and unending when one crosses it at dusk. But there is that shorter, much traversed Palma bridge near the Auditorium  that also has a story to tell. Owing to the big, age-old acacia tree between it and the Auditorium, many students have experienced someone calling them with a “Pssst” as they pass by especially late at night. A small gazebo near it is topped by a statue of a young maiden, supposedly another Maria Makiling figure, holding a traditional clay pot.  Some say this statue is seen holding the pot against one of her shoulders, but when she gets “tired”, she is seen with the pot down, hanging from one her hands. The other bridge along Pili Drive near the Agriculture Engineering and Horticulture buildings is notorious for its darkness and jeepneys avoid driving by it late at night. It is said that “The Graduate” statue has a tendency to come down from his post at the Social Garden and walks along that area. Another short bridge and less travelled one, is the bridge from the Animal Science crossing over to the DTRI building. For those living in Collegeville and Pleasantville subdivisions this is a shortcut which climbs over a short, steep hill to Barangay Putho. I used this alternate route when I was still staying with my aunt and uncle, then College of Agriculture Dean Ruben Villareal. I would walk home and hear footsteps as if following me on the long asphalt road. My cousin Rico had a scarier experience when upon crossing the bridge and passing by the great acacia tree alongside it, he was suddenly bathed in a downpour of sand. Whatever creature resides in that tree, it is quite playful because one time my Mom was driving me back to my uncle’s,  there was a loud crash on our roof as if a coconut has fallen on top of us. My Mom was so surprised, she almost crashed the railing. We stopped a few meters away to check on the car roof and see the damage, but there was no dent at all. We looked around for what could have fallen on us, but there was nothing on the road.

For all her visits to UPLB while we were in college, our Mama had her own share of supernatural stories to tell. This includes that one time she drove for Giselle and her date during a sorority ball and induction ceremony. As in every fraternity and sorority event, the party ended late and we went home in the wee hours of the morning. I was in the car following them with my own date, my brod, Meyrick. At the dorm, they told me about seeing a bunch of people walking along the Anos-Batong Malake area. It slipped their minds that it was around 2 or 3AM, and where could all those people dressed in white, old and young alike, lined-up, trailing each other going off to. They were all headed towards the direction of Bayan-Calamba, but neither Giselle or Mama could see their faces. To this day, we cannot explain it because Meyrick and I didn’t see anything like that on our way back. The roads were simply dark and empty. It didn’t help that along that stretch of the highway was a cemetery. 

Reading about Los Banos’ history years later, I found out that one of the worst massacres happened in Los Banos’ “Bayan”. After that famous raid by joint US forces, Filipino ROTC-Hunters and guerillas liberating the internees at the UP prison camp, the Japanese came back with a vengeance and killed about a thousand men, women, and children who did not leave the area after being advised to escape by the joint forces. 

Today, I remember UP Los Banos with fondness, a special place where I did a lot of growing up. I consider it a badge of honor to have experienced and survived its famous hauntings during my college years.