LOOK: Woman Crawls Out of Drain in Makati City
Here's what really happened, according to the man who took the photos.
(SPOT.ph) It’s the kind of thing you expect to see in a horror movie or a viral ad campaign—but in this case, someone caught it on camera in broad daylight in the middle of Makati City.
A Reddit post recently went viral after a user shared pictures of a woman crawling out of a street drain at the corner of VA Rufino Street and Adelantado Street. The woman eventually sprinted away while a man in uniform chased after her.
The person behind the viral post is William, a hobbyist photographer and marketer by trade who also goes by “Mr. Thirty” on social media. In an exclusive interview with SPOT.ph, he shared what he saw that day—and what happened after.
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William had just finished a boxing session at a nearby gym and was walking home with his camera in hand, a habit he picked up for catching everyday moments on the street. That afternoon at around 5:30 p.m., he stopped at the pedestrian light on the corner.
“I noticed a head emerging from a street drain right at the curb. At first, I was stunned—like, is this actually happening? Then, when she fully crawled out, it felt like a scene from a movie—half surreal, half unsettling. It took me a moment to realize it was a person, and then pointed my camera right at them,” he told SPOT.ph. “She looked disoriented, maybe even panicked.”
He continued taking pictures as the woman emerged from the canal.
“A man in uniform—looked like police or military—was on a scooter nearby and started yelling at her… Then, she turned to me and smiled—like she saw something she wanted. When she did, she bolted in my direction at full sprint. I immediately dropped the camera and got into a defensive stance, just in case.”
The woman eventually ran past him toward Amorsolo Street, with the man in uniform chasing after her. “I lost sight of her in the traffic and the crowd.”
Haunted by what he saw, William returned to the scene later that night around 2:30 a.m. to investigate. The drain was larger than he thought.
“The hole wasn't as small as I had initially thought it was… The catch area of the canal was relatively spacious (almost as big as some rooms for rent in the city)... Even closer, you could see a pipe on the bottom of the catch. A pipe big enough for humans to crawl through,” he said.
When he returned the next day, he saw various agency units, including the Makati Central Estate Association, Inc. (MACEA) and Makati Public Safety Department (MAPSA) at the site. They were boarding up the opening where the woman had exited.
“They were there fixing the crack on top of the kanal—the very crack that let someone slip out (and possibly slip in). They told me this response was because of our post going viral,” William said, adding that the onsite personnel admitted they didn’t know where one of the large pipes inside the canal leads. “I also mentioned reports of a similar situation near Makati Med and Blake’s. They acknowledged it but claimed that case was ‘different’—a big drain near a creek, supposedly known for informal settlers staying inside.”
According to William, photography was prohibited on the site, but he was allowed to take a few pictures since it was his original post that prompted the response.
The Makati City Police have since launched a formal investigation into the viral incident involving a woman crawling out of a street drain, confirming that she had been using the canal near a hospital as a temporary shelter.
SPOT.ph has reached out to the Makati City Government with questions about inspections and existing protocols for assisting individuals in crisis or living in dangerous, off-grid areas. This story will be updated once a response is received.
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