{"id":187680,"date":"2018-10-30T22:51:07","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T02:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=187680"},"modified":"2018-10-30T22:51:07","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T02:51:07","slug":"abandoned-bataan-cemetery-breeds-scary-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/10\/30\/abandoned-bataan-cemetery-breeds-scary-tales\/","title":{"rendered":"Abandoned Bataan cemetery breeds scary tales"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
An open tomb in an abandoned cemetery in Barangay Kataasan, Dinalupihan, Bataan. (Photo by Ernie Esconde via PNA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

DINALUPIHAN, Bataan<\/strong>\u00a0— For more or less eight years now, an abandoned cemetery in a village here has remained unattended and uncared for, becoming a frequent subject of horror tales by the locals.<\/p>\n

With most of the graves already opened and the bones transferred to other burial grounds, a few remaining ones in the closed cemetery of Barangay Kataasan in this town are almost hidden in the middle of trees, shrubs and tall grasses.<\/p>\n

Geny Magisa, 23, also complained of big mosquitoes while cleaning the apartment-style tombs of his grandmother, mother and another relative, which are among the few graves left.<\/p>\n

\u201cHindi ko tiyak kung ilan pa ang naglilinis dahil sa ngayon ako lang ang naglilinis. Meron mangilan-ngilan diyan sa unahan (I am not sure how many are still cleaning because as of now, I am the only one. There is a few at the front),\u201d he said when asked how many graves were still intact and being attended to.<\/p>\n

The tombs of his relatives were in the middle of opened graves and thick vines.<\/p>\n

Asked why they have not transferred the bones of his kin, Magisa said they do not have money yet.<\/p>\n

Near the gate of the cemetery that is believed to be already 100 years old, stands an acacia tree of the same age, near rows of houses.<\/p>\n

Artel Aguilar, 38, said residents in the neighborhood often tell stories of many mysterious occurrences near the cemetery, particularly close to the acacia tree.<\/p>\n

According to Aguilar, there are residents who have claimed seeing a Japanese soldier haunting the area.<\/p>\n

She narrated that once, she had a strange feeling of being extremely weak while sweeping in front of the acacia tree.<\/p>\n

Minerva Mercado, 62, also a resident of the area, recalled that the acacia tree was already big even when she was still a child and that only a few were buried in the cemetery.<\/p>\n

Kataasan village councilor Lando Guevarra is hoping that the abandoned cemetery would soon be donated to the barangay so that it could be used for some other projects.<\/p>\n

He said they were informed that the closed cemetery is owned by the Catholic Church but they do not know what the religious leaders’ plans are.<\/p>\n

Guevarra said that burial in the cemetery was stopped sometime between 2008 to 2010.<\/p>\n

Records at the planning section of the Dinalupihan municipal government showed that the abandoned cemetery has an area of more or less 6,000 square meters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DINALUPIHAN, Bataan\u00a0— For more or less eight years now, an abandoned cemetery in a village here has remained unattended and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":187681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lifestyle","mauthors-ernie-esconde","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}