Pinatubo at 35/Part 4: The 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 Sasmuan.

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.  

(First published June 15, 2020. All photos from the book Pinatubo: Triumph of the Kapampangan Spirit (2008), edited by Bong Z. Lacson)