The Sandiganbayan Centennial Building in Quezon City — headquarters of the Philippines' anti-graft court, the institution tasked with prosecuting corrupt government officials — is haunted by spirits that predate and postdate its judicial function. The building sits on land that was formerly used as a dumping ground for victims of summary executions, and its halls are said to be home to ghosts from the Spanish era and the spirit of its own former Presiding Justice.
The execution dump ground history provides the deepest layer of haunting. Before the court building was constructed, the area was an informal disposal site for the bodies of people killed in extrajudicial killings — a practice that has occurred across multiple periods of Philippine history, from the colonial era through martial law. The spirits associated with this history are described as angry and disoriented, appearing throughout the building but concentrating in the lower floors and the parking areas closest to the ground level.
The Spanish-era ghosts are attributed to the broader history of the Quezon City area, which saw activity during the colonial period and the revolution. These apparitions are less specific — figures in period clothing glimpsed in corridors — but they contribute to the building's general atmosphere of spiritual congestion.
The most specifically identified ghost is that of former Presiding Justice Francis Garchitorena, who served on the Sandiganbayan for years and whose spirit is said to remain in the building where he exercised his judicial authority. The ghost of a sitting or former justice haunting his own courthouse adds a uniquely Filipino twist to the haunted-building genre — the personification of institutional power continuing to occupy its seat of authority after death.
Poltergeist activity reported by court employees includes doors slamming in sealed chambers, the sound of gavels striking in empty courtrooms, and electronic equipment — computers, printers, lights — activating on their own during the early morning hours when the building should be dormant.