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| The vault door to a secret tunnel. Photo: Eli J Obligacion |
I've heard about it many years ago, but never saw until recently the mysterious secret vault with an antique vault door located atop the Marinduque Capitol Building.
No one, according to the many hushed stories, ever succeeded to crack the code and open it. No one till now,
they swear, has any idea at all of what it has been hiding.
Important documents? Arms? Valuables? Valuables like what?
Like gold perhaps?
What secrets or treasures could still be hidden there, if
they’re still there after all these years, intact?
Sssshhh! Now it can be told!
Of vault doors and vault rooms
We know that vaults and safes are vital to banks, to major
government offices in the safeguarding of valuable records of all kinds, maps,
money, jewelry and other treasures. They’re normally fireproof, could withstand
the elements and are highly durable.
Now this secret 'vault tunnel' must have been known to many officials
of the provincial government who have come and gone over the years and may have
even seen this largely unknown tunnel that is an integral
part of the building.
There’s an old door made of hardwood inside the office on
the right wing of the second level of the our heritage building, one that had been used
since time immemorial as the Office of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan - until a
separate legislative building was built years ago.
But if you get to open this rather small wooden door (the office is
now used as the Governor and Provincial Administrator’s Office), an antiquated
wrought iron spiral staircase awaits you. Climb up and upon landing, to your left lies the
mute witness to many secrets of Marinduque history, an antique steel door now rusting
with age but with locks similar to that of a safe vault.
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| These wrought iron spiral staircase will lead you there. Photo: Eli J Obligacion |
There is no other room atop the building where the spiral
staircase leads you to except to the vault room. At a certain point the
vault door must have been concealed from easy view as evidenced by a dilapidated pieces of
plywood and lumber now lying on the floor like it was hammered by a typhoon.
The capitol building had undergone many repairs in the past
and up to the present workers had to fix the perennially leaking roof and
electricians had to do their work. The only way to the rooftop is through these
stairs (hot current flows through it strangely, one could get a shock if not careful).
You immediately notice that the concrete vault room appears to have
almost the same length as the main building less the building's left and right wings. Seeing that, you start getting real curious.
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| The long and narrow concrete vault tunnel (left of picture). Photo: Eli J Obligacion |
Dimensions: (Didn't have a measuring device during my inspection, will revisit and provide an update on this).
The rectangular vault door (approx. 6 feet x 3 feet), is probably cast in bronze (I
could be wrong), it’s rusting in many parts but with clear embossed lettering,
DIEBOLD SAFE & LOCK CO. CANTON, OHIO, U.S.A. and seal with ‘DIEBOLD’ and shades of orange colors as background.
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| The manufacturer: Diebold Safe & Lock Co., Canton, Ohio, USA Photo: Eli J Obligacion |
There appears to be some sign showing that the bottom left
side of the vault door might have been cut and just hammered back. But it also
appears impossible for someone to have gained entry by just managing to cut or
drill an unimpressive few inches due to the vault’s strength. Again I could, of course, be
very wrong.
Then walking through the very narrow passage that separates
the vault room from the upper glass windows that provide additional
illumination to the main hall of the building adjacent to it, I noticed something.
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| 1927 Advertisement from Diebold Safe & Lock Company shows a similar Vault Door. The Marinduque Capitol Building was built in 1927 |
There are five circular holes on the vault room wall about six feet up, some four inches in diameter covered by a strong metal with many holes they
look like sink strainers. But they are probably some practical device installed
for the passage of little air.
However, I noticed that the fifth hole is without any
covering. But it’s too small and too high to enable anyone to see what’s inside
the thick walls of the concrete vault room.
Digging deeper into the mystery
I just got more curious, bent on digging deeper into this
mystery, and maybe uncover what lies behind the wall. There must be a way,
right?
I remember having watched live on TV how a fiber optic
camera was inserted into a crack in an opening in the Pyramid of Giza to see
what’s inside a secret shaft they discovered.
I couldn’t do it just with my thin cellphone camera because
there’s a big chance that with one false move I’d just drop it inside the concrete
vault, never ever to see the light of day again. I then secured a selfie stick thinking that
with its built-in remote shutter I could capture shots of everything behind the
wall, not possible with just my bare hand.
After practicing at home on the use of the gadget that I was
getting acquainted with for the first time, I set out for the quickie adventure
about a week later but not without first conjuring images of what amazing things I might find.
Could it be hiding gold bars? Thick pages of documents?
Unopened chests with untold valuables perhaps? Antique rifles that might have
been stored there for some reason?
Amazing artifacts?
Skulls and bones perhaps just like in the movies? Other
treasures galore?
Or could there be nothing but shadows of the past?
Basta, I have asked around, no one could provide any answer except perhaps unsuccessful attempts to break the vault door.
How I did it
The cellphone with attached selfie stick did not fit well into the small hole I mentioned, that I very carefully and breathlessly had to exert pressure seriously risking both gadgets to really snap. But there’s no turning back I had to do it, and when it got through, aimed the camera blindly in all directions as planned.
Voila!
What do the photos and videos show?
Oh such sadness and tough luck, as these photos will show, there’s nothing behind
the wall except an empty space. It’s devoid of any artifact. Nada.
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| How it looks inside the vault tunnel. Small hole with light passing through could be seen at the bottom of the vault door. Photo: Eli J Obligacion |
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| Middle part of the tunnel. Still empty. Photo: Eli J Obligacion |
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| End of the tunnel. Or is that another door? Look again. Photo: Eli J Obligacion |
How could that be? But one could consider the fact that the
building was rehabilitated in 1946, after the Japanese War, and there are no
existing records of what transpired before that, during and after 1946, with
respect to our little known mystery vault room. As earlier stated, the oldest
records in the capitol are from the early 1950s.
We still don’t know if the Japanese took over the capitol building during the war years like they did in other places, most likely they did, and how badly damaged the building was prompting its rehabilitation by the Philippine War Damage Commission, USA.
Gov. Gen. Francis Burton Harrison and President Manuel Quezon in Marinduque
I just recalled a rare account of life in Marinduque in those days from a diary by no less than Governor-General Francis Burton Harrison that gave considerable importance to this humble island-province. He wrote in part:
“March 23, 1936. We arrived
at Marinduque at 9 a.m… Arayat worn out by the voyage. We went off first and
after fiddling about to get a chauffer, drove up to Boac to get photographic
film.. Chatted in the shop for half an hour until Quezon
arrived—fire-crackers!—constabulary—police—local officials of Marinduque.
Secretary Quirino went on across the island to investigate some case, In the
President’s stead he spoke at a town on the other side of Marinduque.
“Quezon went to the
town plaza of Boac and addressed a large crowd. He seemed very happy to be
among his own people in Tagalog for about forty minutes. He had not been there
for twenty years. He used many homely witticisms, which took well with the
crowd. Made polite reference to my having signed in 1920 the law which made a
separate province of Marinduque, until then a part of Tayabas (Quezon’s own
province)—very evident was his relief at getting away from the Moros…
“Various
inspections—visit to a home, where I asked questions about the local gold
deposits (apparently “a dud”) and about their copra, coffee, etc. Then to
luncheon where I sat beside Quezon…”
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| Gov. Gen. Francis Burton Harrison and President Manuel L. Quezon |
But we now know that Marinduque’s copper and gold deposits are not a dud, eh? And so with hidden and buried gold treasures. Just too many of them.
So comes the question, 'what if, and... what if'?
For now, we know that our built heritage that is the neo-classical Marinduque Provincial Capitol can offer other curiosities that may boggle your mind.
Let's take it from there muna.
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| Marinduque Provincial Capitol. The vault room occupies the top level of the main building where the seven seals of the province are placed. |
