Sounds of footsteps and sighs disturbing the silence and penetrating the darkness are natural occurrences for a security guard who has been assigned for several years on a night watch at one of the private cemeteries in Bacolod City .

Romeo Erespe, 42, who used to guard the Green Hills Cemetery at Villa Villeta, Bacolod City from 6 p.m. up to 6 a.m. the next day, said he will never forget that night when unseen hands suddenly started scratching the rooftop of the guard house, nor the time when he heard footsteps thumping towards his post in the middle of the night.

Erespe said he was very scared the first time he experienced these incidents but later, he got used to them.

He got over his fears when he started talking to his fellow security guards who also told him about their night watch experiences in office buildings, hospitals, and commercial structures.

There was a time, Erespe said, when he thought he saw pictures of the dead who were buried inside the elegant and classy mausoleums in the cemetery starting to move as if the images were alive.

He admitted that his eyes could have played tricks on him, but he said the chilling sound of sighing he heard later was not a work of his imagination.

Though he has not seen any “white lady” or “kapri” in the cemetery, Erespe said he has heard and felt things that confirmed his belief in spirits co-existing with the living and making their presence felt at certain times.

But if he can control his fears of the unseen and the unknown during his watch at the cemetery, Erespe said his experience as a guard in one of the haciendas in Barangay Pusod, Victorias town some time in 1984 almost cost him his life.

One night while he was sleeping inside the guard house, Erespe said he was roused by the feeling that somebody was watching him.

When he tried to get up, he said his body seemed to be paralyzed and he could not move. Erespe said he glanced at one of the jalousie windows facing his bed and there he saw a face of a man staring at him. The face disappeared when he called out for help, he said.

The next day, he told his fellow guards about what happened to him and they told him that the “aswang” in the barrio visited him that night.

Erespe said these tales of the extraordinary were common for security guards like him who are often assigned on night watch.

Though he likes his present assignment at the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital where he reports for duty at daytime, he said the night watch can be more exciting.*NAB

back to top