Pinatubo's forgotten hero

BY CALAMITY defined.

No, not for having caused the calamity but for facing it, taking its full brunt, and rising above it. Thus, Mayor Roy David of Porac, Pampanga found his defining moment in the Mount Pinatubo devastations consequent to the eruptions.

Buried in the volcano’s vomit, besieged by the onslaught of lahar rampages, Porac turned into a ghost town, ready to be abandoned by the national government as catch basin for all pyroclastic flows from Pinatubo. A sacrifice worthy of a holocaust to appease nature’s deity, in this case the Aetas’ Apo Namalyari, for the salvation of the rest of Pampanga.

But no, David would have none of all the talks to “let nature take its course,” and with it, give up all hopes for Porac.

The town cut off from its then-principal economic lifeline that was Angeles City by the chasm that the Pasig-Potrero River had become, David made the impossible passable in a variety of ingenuous means as the truck-mounted metal contraption euphemized as the “London Bridge” (as in the song, “falling down, falling down” sans a fair lady in sight though); the lined-up, sandbag-filled container vans serving as bridges; the sugarcane trucks providing piggy-back rides to smaller vehicles; as well as the immediate scraping and dredging of the riverbed after each lahar passing. Earning for the mayor the uncontested moniker “Lahar Fighter.”

Beyond the devastation of his town, David saw the impending swamping of the municipalities downstream from what he then called “the vantage point of geography and mandated by the law of gravity” – the elevation of Porac higher than that of San Fernando, Bacolor, Guagua, down to the even lower lying towns of Sto. Tomas, Masantol, Macabebe, and Sasmoan.

Guiao

Sharing his insights during a meeting of mayors and Gov. Bren Z. Guiao, David was readily ridiculed as the boy who cried wolf for his insistence that lahar, which within the first months of the eruptions have already devastated his whole town, would ultimately inundate the capital town and all areas downstream Pasig-Potrero.

“E mu ke piyabe-yabe keng problema mu,” was how the mayors dismissed David’s alarums.

It was about this time too that Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology director Raymundo Punongbayan broached the foreboding scenario of a Pampanga buried in lahar, duly reported by Ding Cervantes in the Philippine Star.

Only to be abruptly denied by Punongbayan after some closed-door encounter with Guiao and the local businessmen, thereafter issuing certification of the capital as “safe from lahar.” This, so as not to panic incoming investors and those transferring from Angeles City which bore the brunt of the initial eruptions.  

Left veritably alone to fend for his townspeople, David thereafter found an ally in his townmate then-Vice Gov. Manuel “Lito” Lapid who shared the same sentiment of saving Porac from physical obliteration at all cost. This turned into the cause that sparked Lapid’s gubernatorial run that subsequently buried Guiao in an avalanche never before seen in Pampanga politics. But that is another, if closely related, story.

Diking, dying

“To dike is to die.” Came the cry that reverberated across the province, reaching Imperial Manila, in spirited opposition of the townsfolk against the enclosure of Porac within a diking system that would have buried the whole town.

And with the highly popular Lapid at the Capitol, the wholesale consignment of his town to oblivion was stayed.

This, even as David’s warnings proved prescient with the first lahar flows reaching villages in Bacolor, right at the fringes of the capital town.  

It was the turn of the mayors and the businessmen to raise the alarm – crying “Time to Panic” they mobilized rallies and marches in San Fernando, one virtually on the eve of the Cabalantian tragedy of October 1, 1995 that turned panic into raw terror.

“To dike or to die.” So morphed the cry of Porac with its arrogation by the Save San Fernando Movement to themselves, joined in by the other towns’ copycatting  save movements as well as the province’s own.

This time, the object of their supplication being a megadike system that shall effectively contain and control lahar movement in the Pasig-Potrero River.

Credits

To give full credit to the save movements, notably San Fernando’s, for the erection of the FVR megadike – as what contemporary narratives have come to tell, the accolades getting grander at every retelling – is not only to revise history but to halve the truth. It is to deny the contribution of the hundreds of other individuals and groups that worked as hard and long, if not even harder and longer, for the megadike to come to concretion, literally and metaphorically.

There were the people of Bacolor led by Mayor Ananias Canlas Jr. and parish priest Rev. Fr. Sol Gabriel who made the most sacrifice with the greater part of the megadike occupying their town.  

There was the Mount Pinatubo Commission led by its executive director Tony Fernando. The public works people from Secretary Greg Vigilar to his Pinatubo point man Florante Soriquez and his engineers Sev Enriquez and Lita Manalo – whatever unsavory things may have been written about them – and yes, Rafael “Pye” Yabut.

There were the “good” contractors and constructors that did not come short of, but even exceeded, the specifications of construction. Yes, Marni Castro – dubbed Mr. Megadike, distinct and separate from the movement he was member of – for doggedly making sure the constructors did as programmed.

There was Sen. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Cong. Oscar Rodriguez who took the cudgels for Pampanga in both Houses. San Fernando Mayor Rey Aquino, Angeles Mayor Ed Pamintuan and Cong. Tarzan Lazatin too. Lest we forget, Cong. Zeny Ducut, Pampanga Mayors League president Lubao Mayor Lilia "Baby" Pineda, Vice Gov. Cielo Macapagal-Salgado.

There was by then former Governor Guiao, in situ in Malacanang as chair of some movement called Kabisig, within earshot of the President.  

There was Lapid with his famous impassioned “sardinas” plea to President Ramos – a euphemism for the P555 million to start the construction of the megadike. (555 Sardines, anyone?). And then there was – backstopping and brain trusting Lapid in anything and everything that had to do with Pinatubo at that time – none other than Mayor Roy David.

And most assuredly, there were even more.

“To dike or to die.” So was the collective cry.

The dike was built. The Kapampangan did not die.

Comes then the bitterest sadness at every commemoration of this much-hyped “triumph of the Kapampangan spirit” when the usual limelight-hoggers are celebrated the most while the many who worked harder, sacrificed more, are barely recognized, if even remembered.  

Yes, I write as much as I witness to all these. Privileged as I am for having covered it all, first as a journalist, then as senior consultant to Governor Lapid in his first term, and back as journalist.  

All photos except the last one from Pinatubo: Triumph of the Kapampangan Spirit 

The Prez vs. The Press

FERDINAND THE Great may have been the worst, but his successors too had had their own impositions of the heft of presidential power on the media. In varying degrees though far removed from the Marcosian extreme.

Why, even the sainted Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino was unchristianly unforgiving of the celebrated columnist Louie Beltran after he wrote Cory had “hidden under the bed” during one of the many coup attempts against her. She, going to the extent of lifting her bed covers to show the physical impossibility of her fitting under it – in her all too literal take of Beltran’s idiomatic usage.

Cory sued for libel and got Beltran convicted. Alas, “His Immensity” – as Beltran was fondly called by peers for his built – did not live long to see the triumph of the press with the reversal of the conviction by the appellate court.

A news photographer was banished from presidential coverages after the publication of his photo of Cory mouth agape while eating with her bare hands in some boodle fight in a remote military camp. 

Cory’s animosity towards certain women journalists, notably Ninez Cacho-Olivarez, was an urban legend that went beyond the confines of media circles.

It was nothing more than presidential pique that pushed President Joseph Ejercito Estrada to launch an advertisers’ boycott of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and his taking the Manila Times to court for libel.

Beset with rumors of military restiveness and one really serious attempt led by coup pals navy officers Antonio Trillanes IV and Nicanor Faeldon, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo went almost Marcosian with her Proclamation 1017 in the wake of the arrest of Scout Rangers commander Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim in February 2006.

Among the grounds of that proclamation was "reckless magnification by certain segments of the national media" of the “destabilizers’ claims” against the government.

Malacanang was quite explicit in its warning to the media: "It will be within the parameters of national security. For example, anonymous callers calling media without basis, or footage showing the formation of the Presidential Security Group, or a situation of media reporting that generals or military units are helping those who want to bring down the government. If media are used or allow

themselves to be used to further the interest of these groups, then government will come in.”

So, the Arroyo government did not merely come in, it barged, sans any search warrant, in the premises of the Daily Tribune in the most ungodly hour of 12:45 a.m. of Feb. 25, 2006 and promptly padlocked the publication. (Come to think of it, Tribune publisher-editor Ninez Cacho-Olivarez holds the distinction of having had not-so-pleasant issues with the two women presidents of the Philippines!).  

Lest we forget, it was during Arroyo’s term that happened the biggest single slaughter of media workers in all the world, in all of history that was the Ampatuan Massacre. 

President Benigno Simeon Aquino III was never shy to publicly show, aye, to verbalize, his displeasure towards anyone he favored not, the now lamented Chief Justice Renato Corona included.

The BS’ in-your-face tirades against then-immediate past vice president broadcaster Noli de Castro while guest speaker at an anniversary event of ABS-CBN Network appears now but a precursor to the more virulent fits of pique at the media by his successor.

Thus, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte who has not had the least civility to mask his utter disdain for the media since the presidential campaign period, forcing its way out at every chance, indeed, finding ways, any way, to spew it out at the least opportunity invariably peppered with expletives.      
Coupled with his open emulation of Marcos, it makes me wonder why his tyrannical antics still get any surprise from all of us.

The shutdown of Rappler and its chilling effect on media but one manifestation of some systematic disordering, if not dismemberment, of the democratic space – integral to the Charter-change being shoved down the people’s throat by the rabid mongrels in Congress, the demonization of the Supreme Court, the bedevilment of the Ombudsman and the Commission on Human Rights, the co-optation of the Commission on Elections pursuant not so much for the dubious ends of federalism as for the installation of a Duterte despotism.

That is the tried, tested, and all-too-tired, way of all tyrants. And this makes Duterte not only different from, but most dangerous, of all the presidents apres-Apo Ferdinand. 

This then is no mere issue of freedom of the press and expression. This constitutes a clear, present, and grave danger to the Republic.  

Marcos, nunquam iterum! Never again!

So, we heed and join the people cry:      
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

SO WAS published in Punto! January 17, 2018 under the same title. Come to think of it now – that first Dutertian flick of the finger on Rappler turning to a solid punch on Maria Ressa, and who knows what or who’s next.

And yes, of all the presidents since Marcos, it was only the military Fidel V. Ramos that did not go ballistic with the press. Ay, some irony there.  

Clark shows way to care for OFWs, LSIs

THAT IS the Clark International Airport, at least to returning residents and OFWs in various stages of distress caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Where NAIA fell flat on its face and stayed down on all fours, CRK made it simple par for the course.

On June 14, over 600 Filipinos who flew back to the country via the CRK were sent to their respective home destinations, just three days after their arrival. No, government authorities did not scrimp on, much less forego, quarantine protocols.

Swab-tested upon arrival was this batch that flew in from Dubai composed of 347 seafarers from the Royal Carribean Cruise Ship in Barbados and 307 land-based returning Filipinos from the UAE. Only two tested positive of Covid-19 and promptly isolated and transferred to the We Heal As One Center-ASEAN Convention Center.

The rest bused by Genesis transport to their destinations.

Delivered, as promised. Swift and smooth. Enthused National Action Plan Against COVID-19 deputy chief implementer Vince Dizon: "Ito naman ang ipinangako ng gobyerno – na hindi hihigit sa limang araw ang pag-aantay ng ating mga OFWs. Nagagalak kaming makita na napakabilis ng pagdaan sa proseso ng mga kababayan natin na lumapag sa Clark.”

As quick is Dizon, also the president-CEO of the Bases and Conversion and Development Authority that lords over Clark, in giving credit to peers: “Hindi ito magiging posible kung hindi sa pagtutulungan ng ating mga partner government agencies at local government units dito sa Pampanga.”

As well as the Luzon International Premier Airport Development Corp., the operator of CRK: “Consistent with LIPAD’s Mission of providing our customers with a seamless travel experience, this is indeed a remarkable occasion as we fulfill the wish of our stranded heroes to at last see their families at the soonest possible time.”

How is it that it took weeks, even months for returned OFWs in Metro Manila to get their Covid-19 test results and be released from quarantine when it takes only at most five days for those in Clark?

The quick turnaround of laboratory test results was possible due to the increase in the number of laboratories and the daily testing capacity outside the National Capital Region, so the BCDA said.

The RT-PCR tests of repatriated Filipinos arriving in Clark are processed at the JB Lingad Memorial Regional Hospital in the City of San Fernando, which has the capacity to conduct over 3,000 tests per day. And upon the release of negative results, health certificates are issued by the Bureau of Quarantine, furthered the BCDA.

But aren’t there as many, ay, even more, testing laboratories in Metro Manila?

It clearly ain’t the number, it’s the people committed to the task. And there is both constancy and consistency in the results in Clark.

Last June 9, the IATF made quite a show of the send-off for the repatriated OFWs that arrived in CRK June 6. Three days in quarantine was all it took for them to get their RT-PCR results – all negative – before taken home by buses, with sacks of rice and other food packs from Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda to boot.

“Actually, ang target talaga namin is within five days ang test results. We are so happy na nagawa namin in three days dito sa Clark,” NAP-Covid-19 chief implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. said. Again, the facility of the OFWs testing was attributed to the JBL laboratory.

It was not only Filipino repatriates that were served well at Clark.

The last 10 Mindanao residents stranded in Clark due to the travel restrictions of ECQ finally had their flight for home June 7.

“Masaya kaming lahat na nakauwi na sila. Napakahirap ng pinagdaanan ng ating mga OFWs kaya kung natulungan namin sila ng kahit kaunti para mabawasan ang hirap na yan ay malaking bagay na yun. Masaya kami na makakasama na sila ng kanilang mga mahal sa buhay,” reported Dizon.

Amor con amor se paga, so it is cliched. So here it obtains.

“Sa lahat po ng staff ng BCDA naging close po kami sa kanila, sila po ang nagbantay sa amin dito. Sa time na naghirap kami, sila yung nasasandalan namin,” articulated Orlando Ladia Jr. the feeling of the LSIs on their way home.

And as an expression of their gratitude, Ladia performed “That’s What Friends are For” with his violin, dedicated it to the Task Force Clark Safe Haven which comprised volunteers from the BCDA, the Clark Development Corp., and the Clark International Airport Corp.

There is a general feeling of well-being among the OFWs and LSIs that flew in at CRK, and stayed for quarantine at Clark.

Dizon’s “kung natulungan naming sila ng kaunti, ay malaking bagay na sa amin” is an understatement that comes beyond compare vis-à-vis the OFWs and ISLs’ Metro Manila experience.

For one, those in Clark were housed at Quest Hotel, Park Inn by Radisson, and The Mansion. Nowhere near those seedy motels or under-flyover lodgings in the metro.

For another, there’s LIPAD at CRK.

The issue of repatriated OFWs and distressed Filipinos essentially handled by the same people at IATF, the equation remains: They do well in Clark. Why not at NAIA and Metro Manila?

Pinatubo erupts: The end of days

ANGELES CITY, June 15, 1991 – Once waken, Mount Pinatubo gave vent to centuries of pent-up fury with a series of powerful eruptions, the biggest of which spewed a deadly cloud of ash and gases 25 kilometers into the sky on June 13.

“That is already the big bang. I can’t see any other eruption that will exceed this. What we are seeing now are phenomenal eruptions,” Director Raymundo S. Punongbayan of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology reported.

He cautioned though that: “The story of Mount Pinatubo is not quite over yet.” Mount Pinatubo proved Punongbayan wrong – on the first assertion, and right – on the caution.

June 14 saw the dark clouds like the wings of a monstrous bird casting trembling shadows across Angeles City during the day and a strange gloomy spell that dimmed the lights of the city’s tourist district in Balibago.

Residents, confused as to the real danger became expectant of a distant calamity. Frightened by the frequency of mild quakes and the smell of sulfur in the air, they braced themselves for the inevitable.

The people with foresight started to leave; the fearful began long prayers at home and inside churches; the ignorant, as usual the powerless, waited in trepidation, ready to accept anything, even danger and destruction in sordid acceptance.

That was how the Mount Pinatubo eruption of June 15, 1991 came to Pampanga: with deathly fear, unfathomable anxiety, and widespread confusion that only plagues, war and the other scourges of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse could have wreaked anywhere.

Like an epic, graphic accounts of the Great Eruption varied in their dramatic and incredible description. Real life narrations and first-hand experiences of those who remembered the event are reinvented in every retelling.

Newspapers of the day were unanimous on the congruent conclusion that the volcano had awakened from a 600-year slumber, with accurate forecast of vast devastation, widespread socio-economic dislocation, and a heavy toll from the volcanic fury.

At the Zambales side was a group of media workers who quoted witnesses who said the skies darkened momentarily after the volcano erupted in the early morning of 15 June.

Newsmen reporting from Clark said Mount Pinatubo vomited scorching volcanic material in a violent outburst, then acrid ashes and gases oozed out of the volcano’s active vents. Like the explosion of the first atom bomb in Hiroshima which was timed officially by the US military, the Phivolcs placed the Great Eruption at 8:15 in the morning of 15 June 1991. And thereafter, day turned into the blackest of night.

A tropical storm spotted a distance away from Central Luzon as early as 10 June moved in for the “kill” after the major explosion and developed into a full-blown typhoon.

Thus, Typhoon Diding blew volcanic ash around Central Luzon. It spread and swirled the debris up to Metro Manila, and as far away as several countries that affected air travel for some time.

The midday darkness, the rumblings of the volcano, frightening quakes and aftershocks, lightning and thunder, howling winds and a torrential rain of pumice stones as big as golf balls, mud and ash did indeed presage an apocalyptic end of days.

Panic

Panic broke out in all the districts of Angeles City, its 180,000-populace caught in pandemonium.

Thousands of vehicles scampered out of the city carrying frightened families to San Fernando and nearby towns. The most opulent residents opted to seek safety in Metro Manila.

The families that stayed behind had no alternative places to make their sanctuary.

Those who panicked walked on foot or used every available transport to vacate their abodes in the city. Workers left their posts from factories, markets, shops, clinics, offices, and private occupations, to reach home as fast as they could to prepare for an evacuation. Even policemen on duty rushed home to secure their households.

Crying infants, mothers shouting instructions to members of the family, neighbors hollering for their straying children drowned out church bells that rang incessantly in warning and as notice to leave areas within the 30-kilometer radius from the spewing monster…

Phivolcs officials had earlier warned residents living within the danger zone to immediately abandon their places…

When the 1,500 US Air Force security unit who earlier declared they would abandon Clark “only when we see lava at our doorsteps” raced out of the abandoned base, Angeles residents knew it was time to do likewise.

Exodus

Thus, started the biggest exodus of evacuees and refugees that only a war could generate. All main thoroughfares leading out of Angeles, even those of San Fernando, were jammed with motorists.

Heavy pedestrian traffic clogged narrow roads with frightful people carrying and bundles of clothing. Infants nearly choked in the miasma of sulfuric fumes and steady ash. Every frightened Pampango thought it was the coming of doomsday.

At the North Luzon Expressway, traffic grounded to a standstill as thousands of men and women occupied all lanes in their rush to get out of Pinatubo’s way to wherever. “Kung saan kami maihahatid ng aming mga paa,” the refugees would say.

“We met wave upon wave of panic-stricken people. Kung saan sila pupunta, hindi nila alam,” said Quezon City Mayor Brigido Simeon Jr., a Kapampangan native. He brought some buses to help in the evacuation right at the Angeles City exit ramp of the expressway. The Amoranto Stadium and public and private school houses in Quezon City were designated evacuation centers.

Faces

Public places looked like an open sanitarium with people’s faces covered by surgical masks against ash inhalation. Acquaintances barely heard each other, their speech muffled by heavy gauze masks. But what need was there of distinct language when common fear and the reality of danger made for easy communications among the distraught victims?

In the Metro Clark areas, pumice stone pelted rooftops. A mud rain, then a mighty shower of ash fall covered the premier community as it did towns all over the province.

All through the day and night, sulfuric fumes engulfed Pampanga as pebbles kept falling in malevolent fury. Leaden ash and sand caused building to collapse, first the rooftops buckling down, then the whole structure keeling over like a boxer pummeled by knockout punches.

Two were killed and dozens of commuters were injured when the roof of the Philippine Rabbit Bus terminal in Angeles City collapsed due to heavy ashfall…

Mute agony

Thus, the day of terror began. The nighty ashfall turned day into night while earthquakes shook the region…Mute agony, unimaginable horror, and certain pain, had been written. And equally visible on both the faces of the rich and the poor.

As if to add force to nature’s punitive and merciless wrath, a powerful tropical storm appeared across Central Luzon. Its winds and rains unleashed millions of tons of pyroclastic materials from the slopes of the volcano, sending torrents of smoldering mudflows to Pampanga and Zambales lowlands, burying houses, scouring riverbanks, collapsing bridges, destroying roads, and causing massive destruction in infrastructure and private property unmatched even by the scourge of World War II.

Seven bridges in Pampanga, including the three main spans in Angeles City – Abacan, Friendship and bridges – were destroyed by rampaging mudflows. Churches, markets, schools, public buildings, hospitals including the Ospital ning Angeles collapsed.

The Biggest Bang that was the June 15 eruption would segue to the succeeding blasts with more devastation to follow.

(From Chapter 3, The End of Days, of the book Pinatubo: Triumph of the Kapampangan Spirit edited by Bong Z. Lacson and published in 2008 by the San Fernando Heritage Foundation.)

Pinatubo: June 12's other epochal event

ANXIOUS, APPREHENSIVE anticipation of an expected unknown gripped the people of Pampanga in the weeks leading to June 12, 1991.

Like the prophet of old – or the doomsayer, as a number who questioned his wisdom, if not his authority, were wont to deride him – Director Raymundo S. Punongbayan of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology had raised the alarm of the impending eruption. The signs and sounds upland and on the plains were foreboding.

Like the beating of distant drums that precede a conflict, the incessant rumbling sounds from the bowels of Mount Pinatubo rang the certainty of a coming catastrophe.

On June 10, all the roads out of Angeles City were jammed by hundreds of vehicles in the exodus of American servicemen and their dependents from Clark Air Base to Subic Bay where US warships awaited them for their final journey home.

Up in the Zambales mountain ranges, Aetas, like frightened creatures sensing danger, had heard the initial rumbling and felt the unsettling tremors of mighty Pinatubo since April.

Several months back, the Philippine National Oil Company-Energy Development Corp. had drilled three giant exploratory pipes into the area around the slopes of the volcano in a bid to tap geothermal energy deposits.

The mountain tribesmen of Pampanga resented the exploration as an act of sacrilege and warned of rousing the wrath of the volcano’s mythical deity, Apu Namalyari.

Thereafter, the tribesmen reported of animals scalded by searing sediments and vents billowing hissing sulfuric fumes.

Pampanga residents proximate to the volcano did not sense imminent danger up to the second week of June 1991, but held their uneasy peace with the tumultuous fear of the Aetas’ belief about their disturbed god.

On June 10, ominous dark clouds enveloped Mount Pinatubo, casting an eerie darkening shroud over Clark Air Base.

The following day, tremors started shaking a wide swath of western Pampanga. There was a flurry of movement in personnel, aircraft, and transport units inside Clark. Save for a security contingent, the US Forces had completely abandoned the biggest American military installation outside continental USA.

June 12, 1991. Philippine Independence Day. There was no nationalistic sentiment in the speech of Angeles City Mayor Antonio Abad Santos that followed the flag raising ritual. He underscored the dependence of the city on the American forces, their abandonment of Clark he lamented as “overacting.” Whatever parade scheduled for the day was rained down – not by cold water, but by hot ash and pumice stones.

At 8:51 A.M., a series of thundering explosions shooting a giant plume of ash rising to some 20 kilometers high broke the 600-year slumber of Mount Pinatubo.

Bursting from the volcano’s crater was a gargantuan gray-greenish cauliflower cloud – not unlike the atomic blast in Hiroshima – that blotted out the morning sun. Volcanologists though recorded the first eruption at 3:00 A.M. and reported an avalanche of pyroclastic materials – searing gas with a temperature upwards to 1,000 degrees Celsius, how ash and molten rocks – that blanketed the mountain’s lush green slopes in a dark grey shroud.

In Angeles City, the pealing of church bells added to the cacophony of pandemonium and panic that gripped the residents. At the sight of the mushroom cloud, people initially froze in their tracks, uttered some supplications to their saints, and then scampered for safety indoor.

Fear in the city was aggravated by an announcement from Clark that the remaining 1,500-strong US security force had pulled out of the base.

Jeepneys sped through the streets, oblivious of waving passengers, the drivers desperately rushing for cover.

Other motorists jammed service stations, filling up on gas in readiness for a fast and long drive out of the city. Thousands had in fact fled to San Fernando and other southern Pampanga towns.

Volcanologists earlier warned that the lives of some one million residents of Angeles City and the towns of Porac, Floridablanca, and Mabalacat were directly threatened as their communities were sited within the Phivolcs-designated 20-kilometer danger zone.

Later in the day, the incessant ashfall posed a real hazard to motorists: stuck on windshields, it reduced visibility; as very fine dust, it stung the eye and irritated the nasal passages as well as the skin. Overnight, masks of all sorts – gauze and surgical, improvised hankies dipped in water, even those bio-chem types of Desert Storm vintage – were de rigueur accessories.

Casting personal safety to the wind, President Cory Aquino flew by helicopter to Clark to assess the situation. She visited the Angeles City High School where some 2,000 evacuees, mostly Aetas, had sought refuge. There, an evacuation plan was laid out with no less than three Cabinet secretaries tasked for its implementation.

But there would not be any organized evacuation, with the disaster of such magnitude, and the local officials – the frontline implementers – having evacuated from their posts.  

With Angeles and Olongapo bearing the first full brunt of the eruptions, the deeply religious discerned the wrath of God in Pinatubo: the righteous destruction of the host cities to the US military bases for the same sins as Sodom and Gomorrah’s.

But the devastation would not remain contained there; even holy sites as churches and chapels were not spared.

Punongbayan described the June 12 blasts as major eruptions but warned that Pinatubo still held plenty of built-up magma capable of more severe eruptions.

“This could only be the beginning,” he said, prophetically.

* * *

SO, IT was 29 years ago as narrated in Chapter 2: The Big Bang of the book Pinatubo: Triumph of the Kapampangan Spirit edited by Bong Z. Lacson and published in 2008 by the San Fernando Heritage Foundation.

Finding meaning to June 12

IF WE are to draw out the deepest meaning of what we celebrate on June 12, it will not be enough to merely recall all the glorious epochs in our history: of the unfurling of the Philippine flag at the Aguinaldo Mansion in Kawit, Cavite; of Tirad Pass and Zapote Bridge, and earlier on of Bagumbayan and Pugadlawin; and even much, much earlier, of the various revolts of Dagohoy and Maniago, of Sumuroy and Hermano Pule, of Diego and Gabriela Silang, down history line to Bambalito of Macabebe, and Lapu-Lapu of Mactan.

Nor should we be content to merely pay tribute to Rizal and Bonifacio, Mabini and Jacinto, Jaena, the Lunas and del Pilars, Sakay, onto Abad Santos and Aquino, and all those who consecrated their lives to this nation, not excluding Edgar Jopson and Lean Alejandro.

To take the full measure of our celebration of freedom day, it is not enough that we commemorate what our heroes did. It is a requisite that we imbibe their spirit. It is a must that we match their deeds with our own.

No, I do not mean we should all die like them. As a smart-aleck once said: There is one thing about heroes that I don’t aspire to be – that is their being dead.

Heroism has become the subject of humor, even the object of derision, in these unheroic times. As that common caution to the heroic goes: ͞Huwag ka nang magpakabayani. Binabaril yan sa Luneta.͟

We don’t have to die, if only to emulate our heroes. They have done the fighting and the dying for our country.

Our task is to live for our country. The song of our heroes for the Motherland is “ang mamatay nang dahil sa iyo.” Our song for her is “ang mabuhay para sa iyo.”

Dying for the country is the stuff of heroism. Living for the country is the essence of civic responsibility. Living for the country is our sacred call to duty.

Yes, Ninoy Aquino was right: The Filipino is worth dying for.

So are we equally correct: The Filipino is worth living for.

So how well have we responded to that call? How well have we served, and still serve our people?

For those in government, that call to duty assumes an even greater magnitude.

It is not uncommon to find in government people who value themselves as privileged by virtue of a padrino’s influence imposed on their behalf.

Consequently, they feel no obligation to serve the public, or if they do so, they seek additional consideration as an entitlement. It is not uncommon among government people to see a government post as a sinecure, an office that requires no work but pays off most handsomely.

It is not uncommon for government leaders to value themselves as Providentially-appointed and thus bequeathed with divine rights to wrong their constituencies.

With such misgiven commonalities in government, what service can still be rendered to the public?

For the public at large, the so-called civil society most specially, living-for-the-country goes beyond the perfunctory relief-giving in times of calamities, way beyond the routinary round-table discussions of issues besetting the people, way beyond the television soundbytes of commitment to the poor and the marginalized.

Living-for-the-people is pure will found manifest in the act of tangibility: of real service.

No, we are not called upon to render the supreme act of heroism. We are called to be true and faithful to our civic responsibility.

With the flag as our witness, today requires of us to re-dedicate ourselves to our country, to give our own contribution, no matter how humble, to the mission of re-building this nation.

The fulfilment of any mission requires the unity of mind, the solidarity of purpose, and the collectivity of efforts of all those concerned. Unity is paramount.

As it has long been said: “Never forget that unity is the distinct instinct of people who want to accomplish something.”

Unity then is our call. As rebuilding our nation is our goal. I find this the meaning of our Independence Day celebrations today.

(First published on June 12, 2008 under the title “The meaning of the day”)

Back to life, in print

THE PRESS – our printed page, that is – stopped the day the enhanced community quarantine was imposed upon the land, okay, Luzon island, March 17, 2020.

While news has never stopped, even accelerating in this health crisis with new twists and varied turns, the printing presses did, heavily impacted as they too are by the lockdown.

Newspapers, hence, were -- still are – as much a victim of the coronavirus disease as the mortalities the pandemic claimed, and is still claiming.    

The paralysis the ECQ inflicted upon commerce and industry, and the usual running of government, the courts included, was even more catastrophic to the print media, heavily reliant as they are on advertising. And most adversely for the local newspapers, with their dependence on the court notices and local ordinances, what with the crumbs of commercial advertising they’re getting from the pie that is almost always served the national publications.

Still, as it has long been noted, advertising is always among those first to go in any economic downturn, it being largely considered as “discretionary expense.”

With its principal source of revenue, hence, funding too, dried up, even as fixed expenditures like rent and utilities, and staff salaries have to be paid, Punto! faced the distinct possibility, aye, the dire inevitability, of putting its printed page to final rest. Of writing its final 30, as journalistic morbidity is euphemized.

Unlike publications – such as Sun-Star Pampanga – that are part of a multi-conglomerates – in this instance, the Brobdingnagian Laus Group of Companies – and therefore could always count on some financial propping, in advertisement ex-deals or even direct fund infusion, Punto! is basically an independent enterprise, and therefore most vulnerable to the economic adversities brought about by the pandemic.

So, we had to sacrifice our print edition, coming out last with Volume 13 – oh, that number! – No. 42, March 16-31, 2020.

And, in turn, revitalize our online edition. That which used to be no more than a static carbon copy of the print edition immediately became the principal, and only, incarnation of Punto! Central Luzon.

With even greater sacrifice: all the salaries/allowances/fees from the general manager, the office staff, the editor, columnists, correspondents, down to the last contributor were slashed by a whopping 50 percent. It was hard, it was painful, but it was the only way we could keep Punto! afloat. If only to buy some more time, before the inevitable comes.

It is to the credit of our correspondents – the human infrastructure without which Punto! could not stand, much less excel; to their total commitment to the journalism profession fostering that unwavering sense of sacrifice that we have survived the economic displacement wrought about by community quarantines, from the E, to ME, to G.

Thankfully, a window of opportunity opened along with the GCQ opening up more “essential” industries for resumption of operations.

The malls are open once more. Flights are back again. The courts are in session anew, albeit by zoom. Even the hotels and restaurants are priming for the new normal.

So are the printing presses running again. So is Punto! back in print, if only weekly. But our online edition shall go on not just daily, but as the news comes, whenever and however it comes.

No, we are not out of the financial doldrums yet. We are still far from fiscal stability. But by the grace of God, and with your help, we most certainly will be there.

Yes, we are in supplication for your support, of the moral, as much if not more so of the advertising kind.

   

Blast from the past: White water rafting

DAVAO CROCODILE PARK/June 5, 2011 -- Exactly 8 a.m. is the pre-departure briefing here which starts with the signing of a waiver dispensing the company from any responsibility for any injury or – God forbid! – death arising from the river rafting. 

Then a five-minute video of the course: the 13-kilometer Tamugan-Lacson – now there’s a familiar name – run of Upper Davao River consisting of 25 rapids, usually finished from three to five hours, depending on the level of the water and the paddling capacity of the “adventurers.”

And finally, the Do’s and Dont’s – Don’t attempt to swim. Do drift with the current, feet front. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
With that it’s off on board jeepneys loaded with all the gears – fully inflated rafts on the roof racks, helmets, life vests, paddles and packed lunch.
A 45-minute drive is the “put-in area” at the boulder-strewn bank just below the confluence of the Tamugan and Davao rivers.

Final instructions there, proper wearing of life vests and helmets, then a quick course in the water: paddling – easy, hard, back; high-five; saving one gone overboard; drifting, then again, Don’t panic.

Then off in a raft, river guide shouting “Drift” and everybody jumping into the water and onto the raft and near-panicking when coming dangerously close to the first rapids before being taken back.
Swirls of brown water then cresting in continuous roil: easy paddling, then hard when the waves rise, and high-five – paddles raised – at each pass through the rapids.
Easy there, then a surge – the whole raft as though pushed out of the water and slammed sideways at sheer vine cluttered rock wall, so that’s what was called “kissing the wall.” Still, not one went overboard.

Passing by a cave, the waters again turned turbulent, in one swell, in one fell swoop, the left side of the raft was devoid of its four paddlers. Bobbing helmets, then laughing faces needed to be picked out of the water, until the team of eight was whole again.
And that was the easy part. Let the imagination run wild with the succeeding rapids sporting monikers as “washing machine” with three cycles at maximum speed; the “rodeo” -- the water’s like a bucking bronco; “double drop” -- two successive free-falls into swirling water; and the piece de resistance – “drop and suck” – where the raft is maneuvered between two boulders to drop into an eddy at top spin.

Falling overboard twice – at the rodeo and the double drop – only maxxed the exhilaration. In less than three hours, the course was finished. So intense was the adrenaline rush that there was no tiredness at all. And really, we wanted more, more, more.

As the seasoned traveler would say: Don’t overdo it the first time. Else there’s nothing to look forward to the next time around.

Yes, the wild water adventure is enough reason to return to Davao City. And I’ve got to smell the waling-waling, and bond with the Philippine eagle yet. Plus, a climb up Mount Apo, for another extreme adventure.

(Excerpted from Doing Davao/Free Zone, July 27, 2012)

It's Chinese, duh!

A SUPERMARKET where one can get free medical consultation and buy medicines unavailable in the Philippine market.

A disused restaurant repurposed as a warehouse for medicines.  

Both run by Chinese nationals, for Chinese nationals. Right in the heart of the Filipino-owned Clark Freeport.

Cached thereat – P20-million worth of medicines, medical supplies, food supplements, cosmetics – all bearing Chinese characters, none registered with the Food and Drug Administration.

Part of the medical supply chain of the makeshift, and therefore illegal, clinic, hospital, and pharmacy earlier raided at the Fontana Leisure Park in Clark and at nearby Koreatown in Angeles City. So, the raiding party of NBI and FDA agents suspected, in the absence of hard evidence, as yet.  

It does not take a Sherlock Holmes though to see the connection between the makeshift hospital and the equally improvised medical depot. Even a bungling pulis patola would shout “Eureka!” by simply looking at the circumstances obtaining in all cases and finding their common denominator. It’s Chinese, duh!

Considering the volume, if not the amount, of medicines and medical supplies seized in this latest raid – June 4 – in the Clark Freeport, and juxtaposing it with  the stockpile of the same contraband taken from a PhilExcel warehouse, also in Clark, in the May 21 raid, there emerges the high probability of more clients for these underground pharmaceuticals than those two makeshift hospitals raided so far.

So, we ask anew: What gives now, CDC?

At the time it locked down Fontana last May 20, the Clark Development Corp. declared: “This illegal activity not only violates the law, but also poses danger to individuals who potentially need medical treatment for the deadly disease. CDC does not and will never tolerate this inside the Clark Freeport.”

Yeah, right. And the two Chinese nationals arrested in that raid were released on the same day without any charges.

Then the PhilExcel raid came. And we did not hear even but a whimper from CDC.  

Now, this.

In police parlance, tatlong beses nang nabukulan ang CDC. Fortunately for the government-owned and -controlled corporation, it is not the police and is therefore spared of the PNP’s one-strike policy.

(On second thought, even cops got spat at by the Chinese and, rather than striking back, they simply grinned and bore it.)  

So, as these raids come and go, and everyone getting away with it, it does seem that – as elsewhere in this benighted country – Chinese primacy is the operative, if unexpressed, CDC policy.   

Wonder now if CDC, in actuality, means Chinese Directed Corp.?
(Pictures courtesy of NBI-Central Luzon Office and CDC)