By Danielle Bonior
Silliman University’s heritage is steeped in history—and, perhaps, in hauntings. The century-old buildings bear witness to the cycle of life and death, and the silent walls hold something inextricably more than just memories.
With Silliman’s particular brand of history, it leaves us not only with artifacts and relics, but the lingering traces of what has passed, both seen and unseen.
The caretakers of Silliman, tending to the campus after hours, often catch what others cannot. Long after students have bid the place goodbye with their day seized, the silence beckons the inexplicable: unexplainable phenomena, fleeting shadows, and a sense of being watched when no one else is supposed to be there.
The Home Economics Building
Lolo Bencio had been a janitor for Silliman University’s farm and high school for years, retiring after more than 2 decades of service in 1963, so he thought he’d seen it all.
Yet, one too-early morning, just before the students breathed life into the quiet campus, Lolo Bencio swept the cracked pavement of the high school grounds. It was then, in the stillness, that a voice broke through.
Sharp and ragged, “Nong, tabangi ko Nong. [Sir, help me, sir]”
He glanced up, surprised. Out of breath, a teacher was stumbling toward him, her face a ghostly shade of white. Her hands trembled so much that the papers in her grip fluttered like leaves in the wind. “Ngano man? [Why?]” he asked, trying to keep his tone calm, though the sight of her unsettled him.
“Kay naay white lady sa pantawan sa Home Economics (HE) building gahulat nako, gadunghay ug ga suot ug puti na sinina. [There’s a white lady at the HE building’s porch, hair down and wearing a white gown] ” Her words were rushed, as though even saying them drained her strength.
Lolo Bencio’s stomach knotted. He had never been one for superstitions. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but there was something in her face, in her voice, that twisted his usual skepticism into something unfamiliar. He tried to shake it off. “Sige lang, akong tan-awon. [Alright, I’ll check]”
When he reached the porch, he found it empty. No figure draped in white, no otherworldly presence.
But the emptiness didn’t feel right. It wasn’t the quiet—it was the absence, as if the space was waiting for something that hadn’t yet arrived. He stood there a moment longer than he intended, as if the building itself was holding him in place, watching him with a gaze that wasn’t his own.
Something had been there, in that silence. And it hadn’t been waiting for him to see it—it had been waiting for him to feel it.
“Tinuod na [It’s true],” he would say quietly, years later, to no one in particular. He still didn’t believe in ghosts, but he knew something had been standing there with him that morning, in the place where nothing was supposed to be.
The CBA Third Floor Bathroom
Nanay Ethel, a retired janitress of Silliman University, had spent twelve years cleaning the halls of Katipunan and the College of Business Administration (CBA). Yet, of all the spaces within the university she’s cleaned—in the early mornings or in the late afternoons, she found that there was something seriously wrong with the CBA third-floor bathroom.
She recalled how, one morning, she entered the bathroom and stopped dead in her tracks. Across the mirrors were streaks of red. There, real, vivid red, spreading like veins across the glass.
It wasn’t grime or graffiti. It was blood.
Her pulse spiked as she reached for her rag, the metallic scent of it thickening the air. The blood didn’t wipe away. Instead, it smeared, staining the cloth, turning rust-colored as if the glass itself were bleeding. The more she scrubbed, the more the stain deepened, stubborn and unyielding.
Another morning, she entered the bathroom to find it eerily silent. As soon as she stepped inside, the toilets began flushing—one after another. Relentlessly, a cacophony. Panicked, she pressed herself against the sink, her heart hammering in her chest. But then the faucet exploded with water, the floor flooding rapidly as though the room itself had turned against her. “Wala na ko kasabot unsa akong bation [I didn’t know how to feel anymore],” she said.
The janitress avoids the third floor whenever she can. “Mutuo ko na naay kababalaghan diha [I believe something unearthly happened there],” she said solemnly.
The Katipunan Hall Bathroom
Katipunan Hall stands, a relic from another time. A former mission hospital, the narrow corridors comfort, but many-a-time, threaten to close in—to peel back your defenses and see, truly, if your foundation of disbelief in the supernatural stands.
One night, a janitress came out into the bathroom, her mop bucket by her side. The air was thick, as if the walls were holding their breath.
Bending down to begin her cleansing of the bathroom, water crashes down on her—driven by force, like it was thrown. The icy water completely drenched her, forcing her to gasp and shiver. Around, she turned, anticipating a prankster in the room. Yet, none was present.
No leaking pipes. No dripping faucets. No one but her.
Her hands trembled as she clutched her cleaning tools. The wetness clung to her skin like a second presence, a reminder that she wasn’t alone. “Walay lain, siya ra gyud usa [There was no one else. She was truly alone],” her colleague confirmed.
Humble Keepers of History, Bearers of Hauntings
Silliman University’s century-old buildings are more than just structures—they are the keepers of stories, both seen and unseen. From the echoes of war to the quiet struggles of its students and staff, the university has borne witness to lives lived, lost, and remembered. However, the passage of time leaves more than mere memories. Many claim that the structures themselves contain vestiges of the past—ghosts, maybe, or simply the weight of history.
The custodians, such as Lolo Bencio and Nanay Ethel, have witnessed what most of us miss—that the past is in the slightest shifts in the air, in the weird noises, and the sensation that something is never quite still.
