MANILA, Philippines - Apart from dealing with cases about ghost employees, ghost projects, and ghost deliveries by erring government officials, officials and employees of the Office of the Ombudsman building in Quezon City have other things to deal with – real ghosts.
Though the building located along Agham Road, North Triangle in Diliman is relatively new, there are stories of how crying babies and grieving women are heard mostly at night.
Employees who shared their scary experiences with The STAR on condition of anonymity said eerie sounds haunt the halls of the five-storey structure.
“A baby cries at night,” one of them said when asked if they have ever encountered ghosts in the workplace.
“You hear a woman crying,” said another who believes that the two phenomena are somehow connected.
The STAR learned that the property where the Office of the Ombudsman’s new building was built during the time of former ombudsman Aniano Disierto used to be a grassy vacant lot.
“They say that a lot of aborted babies are thrown here. Maybe those are the babies that are heard crying and the women are their mothers. Just maybe,” one employee said.
Another employee also shared the story of how a security guard, while doing his rounds at night last month at the office of the Community Coordination Bureau, heard a loud clap while he was looking at some pictures.
“It was one clap but it was loud enough,” The Star was told before another employee revealed that a director of the office died last year.
“He used to come very early in the morning. Employees who were used to seeing him early in the office were worried,” a worker said. “But when they went to his house, they saw him already dead apparently suffering from a heart attack.”
However, the “ghosts” of the new Office of the Ombudsman building are nothing compared to that of the old Ombudsman building in Arroceros, Manila.
The structure, built by Americans, was allegedly haunted by “white ladies” and a ghost of an old woman, a vendor who died in a freak elevator accident.
According to the story, the victim frequented the building. She was killed when she stepped into an elevator that moved upwards without the door closing.
“She panicked and jumped out and eventually got pinned. She broke her spine in the process,” the story goes.