Scary stories from Loakan Road (conclusion)

PERHAPS, the most recent of Emil’s brushes with scary stories from Loakan Road is of being in Edna’s Brewyard in Nevada Square with a couple of managers, one from Bank of the Philippines Islands and one from Globe Telecom, when one of their beers, in Emil’s words, “just up and disappeared!” Must have been a spirit in dire need of a drink.

Reminding me of another incident that was par for the course in what is now Forest House restaurant, which used to be a pretty haunted house before Ari Verzosa somehow turned that around. At least, I think he has.

Anyway, that house used to be my grandfather’s; it was the house my father and his siblings grew up in. It was also one of the houses that were confiscated by the Japanese occupation forces during World War II. The family stories have it that after the war, when my grandmother went back to it from the Camp Seven ranch/farm where the family hid out, she found a gruesome scene of death and gore, to the tune of heads on spikes and the like. It upset her so much that she sold the house rather than go back to living in it.

From that point on, and the house has exchanged hands maybe three for four times since then, scary stories have been told of it by the owners, one of them being that dining plates and glasses would be literally floating about from the dining table, that tale the disappearing beer reminded me about. We also were once regaled with a story about an old woman sitting by the front door, just sitting – first seen and then not seen, then seen again, then not, but just “always there.” Among many other tales. And so on, these goings on in a house by Loakan Road.

Emils eldest daughter Noneng emailed her dad a link to a site that banners “Baguio’s Famous Haunts: the Loakan Road Hauntings” (http://www.ironwulf.net/2009/11/27/baguio-famous-haunts-the-loakan-road/), which tells of yet other “white lady” sightings and other Nevada Square incidents.

It is still Noneng who also found online a book by Ernie and Noel Zarate: “Baguio, Spooky Baguio – a Collection of Baguio Ghost Stories.”

Of those online, the scary ones from Loakan Road are still about the white lady, the big tree, and Nevada Sqaure, consistently, from various sources. There must be truth to them. Else why would they abound so much?

Stories that won’t go away.