A stretch of coastal road in Barangay Legaspi, in the municipality of Alegria on Cebu's southwestern coast, bears the name "Hilan" — a Cebuano word meaning "haunted." The name itself is a warning, passed down through generations who have witnessed vehicular accidents clustering around an old tree that stands sentinel over a section of the road with a dark wartime history.
During the Japanese occupation of Cebu (1942-1945), the area around the tree served as a disposal site for the bodies of local residents killed by Japanese forces. Suspected guerrilla sympathizers, those who failed to comply with occupation edicts, and civilians caught in the crossfire of counterinsurgency operations were executed and their remains dumped along this coastal stretch, buried in shallow graves or left among the rocks at the water's edge.
The accidents that occur near the old tree follow a pattern that locals attribute to the restless dead rather than road engineering. Drivers report sudden disorientation as they approach the tree — a feeling that the road has shifted beneath them, that their steering has been seized by invisible hands pulling them toward the embankment. Some describe seeing figures standing in the road who vanish on impact, causing the driver to swerve into oncoming traffic or off the shoulder.
In Cebuano spiritual belief, locations where the dead were disposed of without proper burial rites become "dautan nga lugar" — evil places — where the spirits of the unburied remain earthbound, their anger directed at the living who pass through their territory. The Hilan embodies this belief: a beautiful coastal road where the sea breeze carries the salt of the ocean and, according to those who live nearby, the unresolved fury of the wartime dead.