Sharing with you some of my shots when I visited the Diplomat Hotel (aka Dominican Hill) in Baguio City.

Some claim that the ruins are haunted.

More photos after the break…

Diplomat Hotel / Dominican Hill (Baguio City) – Jan 2010

Here’s a short history of the property via this website:

The Dominican Order in the Philippines decided in May 1911 to construct a vacation house on top of what was later called the Dominican Hill. It was a 17-hectare property the Dominicans acquired from the previous American owners. Construction work was believed to have started in 1913 under Fr. Roque Ruano and the building was inaugurated about two years later on May 23, 1915. To take advantage of tax exemptions, a school called Collegio del Santissimo Rosario was opened in June 1915 but due to the very small enrollment, the school closed two years later and the building was reverted back to the original plan of setting up a vacation house.

During the 2nd World War, Dominican Hill was occupied by refugees fleeing from the Japanese Army Liberation Forces. Later the Japanese forces bombed the refugees out which resulted in extensive damages to the main structure and the surrounding area. Reconstruction work started in 1947 and was completed in about a year.

Diplomat Hotels, Inc. acquired ownership of the property in 1973 and remodeled thoroughly the interior into a 33-bedroom hotel but still retaining the unique and distinct personality which was earlier established by the Dominican friars. Even the large white cross on top of the building was retained. The hotel was managed by Tony Agpaoa, a Baguio-based entrepreneur and faith healer whose guests were mostly his patients from Europe. Diplomat Hotel ceased operations with the death of Agpaoa of a heart attack in 1987 and has since been closed to the public.

Dominican Hill has since been declared off limits to visitors. Local residents say that Dominican Hill is now a haunted place. The building is falling apart and is in a very dilapidated state. The railings and the guard house are about to collapse. The grounds have not been maintained that tall grass and weeds are all over the place. Some people who live nearby claim that at times they could hear the banging of doors, windows, clattering of dishes, and voices of people screaming in the middle of the night. There are also instances when the place is so quiet that not a single sound is heard the whole night. Perhaps this eerie phenomena could be attributed to the ghosts of its former owner and the different terminal patients who came to the place for hopes of being healed and have since already died. Some also say that Dominican Hill is haunted by the ghost of the people who were killed there during the war.

Photos (c) Mon Macutay. 2010.

More articles on Photography here

Yesterday, I just flew back from Cebu from the wild and successful Visayas leg of the LIVE 2009 Regional tour. I promised to post some updates and pics, but allow me to catch up first and blog about the Baguio leg first, our Luzon kick-off of the LIVE 2009 Regional tournaments for all major Level Up games. This is way overdue… am so busy.

Me and the rest of the LU GMs went up to Baguio last June 13 and 14 for 2 days of intense PVP and tournament action. The Level Up site already announced the highlights and the official list of winners.

Meanwhile, here are some of my adventures together with the LU posse in photos…

Baguio Regionals 2009 Photo Essay (By GM Tristan)

(above) This is St. Louis University. All of the cafes are located near this school.

(above) A shot of Pynes, the Rohan venue on the day before the tourney. No crowd yet, of course

(above) GM Krieger of Rohan doing ocular checks one day before the event. So far, so good. All systems check!

(above) Our nice and cozy hotel, Microtel. There’s free coffee 24/7. We labs this place!

(above) Day 1: Crowd already there as early as 8am. Registration doesn’t start until 10am.

(above) Another crowd shot waiting for the registration to open

(above) Time to go in and register! Vengeance is always an option! Woot! CK and Rohan venues are near each other

(above) This one is the venue for the Grand Chase and RO tournaments. Notice the big tarp? Cool!

(above) Some of our tarps announcing the tourneys. Thanks to our sales peeps for doing the rounds!

(above) Grand Chase competitors scouting the opposition

(above) GM Chastity doing final checks on registration for Ragnarok.

(above) Ragnarok players having an EB, buying raffle tickets and just being cool!

(above) GC’s GM Cassiel explaining the tournament format to GC players

(above) The dungeon: The RO cafe was a basement. The stairs were like Prontera! You couldn’t drop a pin down there!

(above) CK GM Racebooss (Jeff Paulino) checking out the PCs on the CK venue.

(above) CK players doing practice runs. vrooom vrooom!

(above) Baguio players showing their stuff!

(above) Light moment at the hotel with GMs Vessago, WinterTsuki, Misty, Atma and Samhok (back turned)

(above) GM Cassiel and me! Woot!

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the Baguio Level Up players who supported us and attended. Thanks also goes to all the Level Up peeps who went up to the City of Pines to facilitate and run this event especially to our events team led by Joie and Bhevz, our Sales guys up North led by Archie and Edwin and all the BMs, CMs and GMs who pitched in!

The event would not have been successful without your great work.

Rok On!

I promise to upload the Cebu pics and updates this week, oks?

Peace!

GM T

Want to know what I’m doing? Follow me on Twitter or Plurk

Last weekend, I was at Baguio to do field work and check on the Internet cafes there. Each senior manager is tasked to do sales/field experience and mine was at the summer capital.

It’s been around 10 years or so since I’ve been to the City of Pines. I left for Baguio Friday, March 7 and went back down to Manila last Sunday, March 9, 2008.

As soon as the bus entered the city limits I expected to smell pine. But, lo and behold, I smelled petrol! Acck! Yes, it’s cold up there but it also is polluted.

Baguio is now crowded and full of vehicles. The once quaint and quiet city is now bustling with noise and activity. My hotel was just at the top of Session Road adjacent to the new SM Baguio. Of course, I went to Burnham Park! Yeah… there’s still water and boats, the same as I remembered it all those years ago. I then went to visit the Cathedral and Mines View after doing my Internet Cafe rounds.

Anyways, here are some more pics during my stay there.

Ya think that’s fog? Think again…

Ahhh… Burnham never changed

There’s this BIG St. Bernard at the Park that called my attention and said “GM penge items”… I told him “picture na lang”

Upper Session Road.