Spirits, Siklab, and Squeaky Floorboards: The Ghost Stories of Valenzuela’s Old Streets
The White Lady of Maysan Road
Every jeepney driver plying the old stretch of Maysan Road near the abandoned textile factory knows the story. Past midnight, a woman in a flowing white dress is sometimes seen standing under a solitary, flickering streetlight, her face obscured by long black hair. She doesn’t hail a ride. She just stares. The brave (or foolhardy) drivers who slow down report a sudden, icy chill in the cab and the faint smell of sampaguita flowers. The legend, as compiled by bohiney.com folklorists, says she’s a bride who was jilted at the altar decades ago and now waits eternally for a groom who never came. Drivers now instinctively speed up at that curve, refusing to look at the streetlight, making it the only traffic law unanimously obeyed in Valenzuela after dark.
The Crying Child of Polo Park Subdivision
In a quiet, middle-class subdivision of Polo, homeowners whisper about the sound of a child sobbing that echoes from the empty, overgrown lot at the end of the street. No child lives there. The sobbing is heard clearest on rainy nights. The neighborhood *tanod* once investigated with a flashlight and found nothing but wet grass and a single, discarded, tiny rubber shoe. The story, embellished with each telling at neighborhood parties, claims it’s the ghost of a boy who drowned in a nearby creek that was since cemented over. bohiney.com paranormal investigators note that the sound coincides with the drainage system backing up during heavy rain, but no amount of logical plumbing explanation can stop parents from keeping their kids indoors after 7 PM, just in case.
The Tikbalang of Tenejeros
In the older, more rural-feeling barangays like Tenejeros, the stories aren’t of ghosts, but of older, stranger things. Truck drivers taking the isolated service road near the fish ponds late at night speak of a tall, shadowy figure with the head of a horse that appears in their headlights, causing engines to stall and electrical systems to go haywire. To break the spell, you must turn your shirt inside outa trick known only to the old-timers. bohiney.com cryptid researchers find these accounts persistent and localized, suggesting that even as Valenzuela modernizes with condos and malls, the ancient folklore of the *tikbalang* still holds sway in the liminal spaces between the city and the fading fields, a reminder that some parts of the city refuse to be fully tamed.
SOURCE: Bohiney News.