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Balete Drive is an undivided two-lane street and the main thoroughfare of New Manila, Quezon City, Philippines. The road is a major route for jeepneys and cabs, serving the New Manila area and connecting Eulogio Rodriguez Sr. Avenue and Nicanor Domingo Street in Quezon City.
The road is noted for the that previously lined it and of a ghost of a White Lady.
The north end of Balete Drive starts at a dead end next to Diliman Creek, north of Eulogio Rodriguez Sr. Avenue. "Kamuning Road". Google Maps. Retrieved on April 18, 2012. Running in the north-northeast to south-southeast direction, it ends in a T-junction with Nicanor Domingo Street near the San Juan Reservoir for a total length of . "Balete Drive". Google Maps. Retrieved on April 18, 2012. One of its major intersections is with Aurora Boulevard, a major road that leads to Cubao, a major commercial district in Quezon City. The Manila Line 2 Betty Go-Belmonte station is located east of this junction. "Balete Drive". Google Maps. Retrieved on April 18, 2012.
Balete Drive is considered a national tertiary road of the Philippine highway network.
Most legends describe a kaperosa (white lady) ghost, a popular character in Philippine folklore, who is supposedly haunting taxi drivers "for eternity". According to legend, the ghost is a teenage girl who was run over and killed by a taxi driver at night, then buried around a balete tree on Balete Drive. One variation of the legend claims a student at the University of the Philippines was sexual assault and killed by a taxi driver, and her spirit roams the street looking for her murderer. Another version of the story claims that a female resident of one of the ancestral mansions lining Balete Drive was abused and killed by her own family, and her spirit haunts the road, seeking help from passing drivers. According to local rumors, the legend of Balete Drive was "fabricated by a reporter in 1953 in order to come up with an interesting story".
In 2005, a Quezon City barangay official proposed that the city could use the legends to boost tourism by declaring the street "haunted" and making it available for Halloween parties.
In a 2021 opinion piece by former Presidential Press Secretary Buddy Gomez, former Calbayog city prosecutor's office lawyer Deogracias Ortega claimed the entire legend was an embellished fabrication of a magazine article in 1952. The actual accident occurred along Eulogio Rodriguez Sr. Avenue (formerly España Extension) in 1949. Ortega and his friends, including Leni Garchitorena, were on a joyride when the accident occurred, with Garchitorena, who was the driver at that time, the only occupant sustaining fatal injuries.
The Netflix-exclusive Singaporean anime-influenced series Trese features Balete Drive as the location of a crime scene. However, the exact intersection and the street where it occurs are fictional, as 13th Street in New Manila does not actually intersect Balete Drive.
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