BAGUIO CITY, Philippines (The Adobo Chronicles, Manila Bureau) – It’s political campaign season in the Philippines and, as expected, the presidential candidates are making their respective promises to the Filipino electorate.  The Aquino administration’s candidate, former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, is no exception.  He continues to tow the line of Daang Matuwid (Straight Path).

His promise?  If elected, he will abandon the summer residence of the president of the Philippines — the Mansion House — and move to the Laperal White House on Leonard Wood Street.

The White House is a historical building orignally owned by the Laperal family and converted into a museum.  It is known by many to be haunted.  It was occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II and served as a garrison, where — if some stories are to be believed — they brutally tortured and murdered many. Among them, the Laperal family, except Don Roberto, who would survive the war only to accidentally slip and fall to his death from the stairs in front of the house.

Roxas said that giving up the expansive and elaborate Mansion House — one of Baguio’s top tourist attractions — would be in keeping with Daang Matuwid, which aims to abandon government excesses.

On the other hand, Roxas said, he’d rather live in the White House during his visits to Baguio. ‘There is a very prestigious and presidential feel to it. It will put me in equal footing with the president of the United States whose official residence is also called the White House.”