What happened
Spanish and American Dominicans planned a retreat house on a hill in the mountain resort of Baguio in 1911. Construction, supervised by Fr Roque Ruaño, was finished in May 1915, and in June a college opened in the building, lasting about two years. During the Second World War the Japanese took it over as a headquarters and garrison. According to accounts, priests, nuns and refugees suffered atrocities here, and the Kempeitai ran a camp in the building. In April 1945 American bombing damaged the right wing. In 1973 Diplomat Hotels bought the property and turned it into a 33-room hotel managed by the famous ‘psychic surgeon’ Tony Agpaoa. After his death in 1987 the hotel closed and was abandoned, and looters and the 1990 earthquake did the rest. The ruin gathered legends: headless nuns walking the corridors, phantom Japanese soldiers, screams and noises, and figures appearing in photographs. In 2005 the property was handed over to the city, and in 2014 it was declared a National Historical Site.
Witnesses
Baguio residents, tourists, TV crews and photographers; accounts in the Philippine media.
Explanations and hypotheses
The building's history – Dominican, wartime and as a hotel – is well documented. The ghost stories, including the headless nuns, are folklore that grew from the memory of wartime atrocities and the building's long abandonment; they have no independent confirmation. Philippine media note that stories of Japanese soldiers' ghosts are especially persistent in the country because they carry the memory of the occupation from one generation to the next.
Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.
Sources
- ABS-CBN News – Alden Monzon, Tales of WWII-era Japanese ghosts persist in Philippines (2020)
- The Philippine Star – Artemio Dumlao, Dominican retreat house now a heritage site (2014)
- Manila Bulletin – Rizaldy C. Comanda, Historic Diplomat Hotel gets P15-M grant for conservation (2022)
More: Wikipedia (en)