Haunted Baguio: Spirit Quest at Nevada Square Revisited
October 29, 2008 by lisa
Filed under people & events
Right before we started, though, Dr. Noli Quirino of the Emergency Rescue Assistance Group of the Baguio General Hospital, and a male companion suddenly arrived, uninvited and unannounced, saying that he didn’t understand why but he was drawn to Nevada Square and knew that he had to be there. This statement, of course, made us all realize that there were strange goings on on that day at Nevada Square, that we could not explain. And of course Dr. Quirino was more than welcome to join the group.
My friends Marionne Ruiz, a very pregnant Malen Catajan and psychic Sandy Coronel were Baguio Questors and Tony had requested beforehand that they be there. Marionne had just lost a child and was hoping to come into contact with him, somehow during the quest. Later, Marionne and I would become comadres when she asked me to stand as godmother to her youngest child, who was born later.
Of course I had to ask the Spirit Questors if the activity was safe for pregnant women, and they laughed and said that it was, of course, very safe. I really knew very little about what was going to happen — all it knew was that they were going to ask the spirits to leave Nevada Square alone, and hopefully the mood would lighten and business would get better.
KC Nevada was there, too, and I do not recall that landlords and business owners Endong or Edna Nevada were present during the activity. KC had just arrived from finishing her studies in the U.S. and was busy planning the relaunching of Brewyard Bar and Grill, and waitressing for Atenara in the meantime, just for the fun of it, while I helped them reopen their place.
Customers would ask her who owned the cafe and she would point to me, usually working in the kitchen, and I would holler, “But she is my landlady!” and the folks would shake their heads in confusion.
A photo journalist, Toots Soberano, was seen slinking about, trying to get photos of the event surreptitiously until I was told to send him away. He argued that the exercise was news, and I retorted, “This is a private affair!”
Ces Orena-Drilon was scheduled to arrive the next day to interview the family of an earthquake victim, whose name, I’m sorry I cannot remember, and with Tony, an exercise in attempting to contact the deceased.
We just...
Thanks for finally writing down the story you’ve orally told us before…I’m a sucker of ghost stories, eh.
Actually, I was clearing my photo files because the laptop is running out of hard disk space (thanks to digital photography where one can “fire” at will.
I saw these old photos. There were more of them originally (Tony Perez was given the full set) and because the Philippine Star does not carry Tony’s account (of course his version was way better than this) in its archives, I decided to store the photos and the stories here instead. Now I can delete them from the hard drive.
http://cathcath.com/?p=4301
you can read more about paranormals from Ca t’s blog
pardon my ignorance, which restaurant do you own? thanks
I had my wedding reception in Hotel Nevada on Dec. 1986. I do believe in spirits coming back. How about praying for the souls of those who perished during that earthquake? I hope before building the “Nevada Squeare,” they had the area bless first. Para sa akin walang multo-multo sa “Power of Prayer.” That’s the best thing we can give to those souls….PRAYER.
I really love your site Lisa. Very informative and interesting.
Thank you.
hehehheheh marionne told me you had a photo f me pregnant!!! had to see it to believe it. buti na lang partial lang!!!!!!
Hiya Malen,
The original photo was actually a full shot! I precisely edited you so folks maybe would not recognize you, as I am sure no one will easily recognize Marionne with red boyish hair!.
You were so big with child that I remember even asking if “spirit questing” was safe for pregnant women! Hahaha!