The "White Lady" is a worldwide phenomenon and each country has its own take on the mysterious wraith. White Lady sightings are very common in the Philippines, and this post would be far too long if I attempted to include all of the information in just the one post.
Since my return to the Philippines, I have visited my mother's province three times and have been at some of the locations where the supernatural occurrences I write about had taken place.
The above image does not specifically relate to this story, and is just there to show how little the rural town had changed since my mother's childhood. While houses now have electricity and running water for the most part, wells and outdoor water-pumps are still in use, and agriculture remains an important aspect of the local people's livelihood.
Shortly after the second World War, my grandfather, an educated man who had previously been a foreman at an American gold mine decided that the town needed a school and took it upon himself to build the first school house. He would later go on to become a teacher and even principal and was a highly respected member of the community. The school-grounds at the time were still thick with trees and vegetation, and the school house itself was made entirely out of wood. It was situated fairly close to the river, and fisherman out in their boats in the dark morning hours would often row past it.
It might have been the site or the construction itself that brought her forward - Whatever the case, there is a White Lady haunting the school-grounds and she had the tendency to appear inside the school-house. She is described as a woman with long hair, wearing a white dress, who would often call out to the fishermen on the river or those who happened to be on the school-grounds alone. It is not understood why she called out to those passing through, they were not believed to be her relatives, and no one claimed to know who she possibly had once been. Maybe, it was a cry for help.
The locals believed that she was a woman who had been raped and murdered by Japanese soldiers, her body subsequently hung on one of the trees.
One of my distant relatives had gone to the grounds early in the morning to gather sap from the palm trees. It was best to collect the sap in the morning as it was cooler, but as he waited for the tubes to fill at the top of the palm tree, someone started to call him from below. He looked down and saw a woman with long hair, wearing a white dress...He had heard the stories of course and he was worried that she would climb up after him, or remove the ladder so that he would be stranded up there. She continued to call his name and circled the tree, in his desperation he sprinkled some of the palm sap he'd gathered onto her, and she disappeared.
Another incident took place some time later when a dentist came to visit the town for three days to treat the locals. He turned down offers to spend the night in their houses and said he would sleep at the school house. He was immediately warned of the supernatural presence of the White Lady. The dentist was a sceptic, however, and shrugged the claims off. He went so far as to say, "Let her come! I'll face her."
After the people's persistence, he did agree to at least take some safety measures. He told the people that if something did come to visit him that night he would fire his gun twice, and that they were to come and check on him.
Sure enough, late that night, two gunshots were heard from the school house and the locals who lived closest went to make sure no harm had come to the dentist.
The dentist was fine, but he had indeed been visited by the White Lady.
I've been to the school-grounds, while the old wooden school house is long gone - now replaced by sturdier concrete buildings. They say she haunts there still.
I hope that one day she will be at peace and move on.
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