I don’t remember what I was doing when it all began. All I know is that strangely, it was so dark when it was supposed to be morning. It was a Saturday and I should have been out playing, but I couldn’t. What seemed like grey snow was already drizzling down from the sky.
Weirdly enough, even as the second most destructive volcanic eruption of the 20th century was happening, I don’t remember being that scared. Maybe it was because I didn’t realize the gravity of the situation. It was my first time after all. It was the kind of experience that most of us would only get to read in elementary science books. I guess I was more amazed at the novelty of the natural phenomenon than terrified of its implication to our lives and to the rest of my province.
I don’t remember how or when it started, but suddenly, all our relatives from both sides of the family were trooping to our house. Literally everyone was there! There was not one unoccupied bed or seat in the house. Now for a 7-year-old kid who looks forward to seeing and playing with his cousins, that was actually quite fun. Haha! In fact, I was so unafraid and delirious to the situation that I even tagged along with my older cousins when they had to go back to their homes in Porac to evacuate more properties. And when I went out of our neighborhood and saw the devastation wrought upon everyone else, that was when it hit me – this eruption is no joke.
We never made it to Porac. The river bridge between Angeles and Porac was unable to endure the rampage of the volcanic flow from the mountains. Everyone with vehicles was stranded. We couldn’t move forward. And going back was just as hard because of panic and the heavy traffic. And it didn’t help that it was at that period when the climax of the eruption was happening. From the meek ash particles, rocks of various sizes were now plummeting down the sky.
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My more hardcore relationship with Pinatubo would come many years later. Except for the huge hassle of having to clean our roof and yard because of the thick ash that Pinatubo spewed into the atmosphere, we were quite fortunate to have not experienced extensive damage to our property from the actual eruption. What would really affect us in the future were the “unstable” rainy seasons year after year. Whenever it rained hard, the mountains would unleash a fresh new serving of lahar deposits that would bury one barangay after another, year after year.
Our town was spared during the eruption itself simply because San Fernando was situated in relatively higher ground. But when the time came when the lower-lying towns were already wiped out by lahar, they became the “higher ground” and consequently, we were now the “lower ground”. There was a year when we had to evacuate many of our stuff in the house so that if worst comes to worst that San Fernando will be finally devastated, we could leave behind not so valuable properties. There was no ref. We had to sleep in mattresses. And our tables and chairs were so small, haha.
We only had to evacuate once during a November storm, but every storm that passes by was a challenge (and take note, MANY storms pass by the Philippines on any given year). Thank God it was a false alarm and we didn’t lose our home. But the experience was bad enough to scare the shit out of me. I actually thought we were going be homeless and poor! I was a spoiled little brat then, so yes, it was quite a big deal. Haha!
In 1995, lahar buried my school, Don Bosco Academy and we had to share rooms with St Scholastica’s Academy for the rest of the school year.
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Twenty years after, it’s astounding how Pampanga recovered from the wrath of Pinatubo. Buried towns years ago are now recovering, people have started to go back to their original homes and start anew.
I won’t go on and point out all the good stuff, haha, but suffice to know that all in all, the Mount Pinatubo eruption forged a certain resilient character in every Kapampangan, in every facet of his life. Although our province would be famous for other things too later on, some of which are quite shameful (I’m looking at you, PGMA), but the way our province rose from ashes is one thing all Filipinos will admire.
And as a Kapampangan, it is something I will always be proud of. Kapampangan ku, pagmaragul ku.
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