By Fr Frank O’Kelly MSSC

On Philippine Independence Day, Wednesday, June 12, 1991 I attended an ecumenical service in the town plaza of Cabangan.  At around nine in the morning I returned home to write a letter to the former parish priest, Fr Malcolm Sherrard who had been assigned home to New Zealand.

Ash fall

Suddenly I heard shouting outside.  I rushed down the stairs, “See, Father, the sky!”  I looked up and saw what seemed to be a gigantic spaceship filled with magnificent colors.  I heard rumbling.  It grew stronger and stronger and darkness began to descend.  Frightened, we hurried home as ash began to fall.  I went into my house and closed the windows as the rising wind was beginning to blow the ash inside.  Soon total darkness fell.  What I remember then was the awful silence, no barking of dogs or crowing of cocks, no noise outside, just an eerie silence.  Even the ants had disappeared from the floor.  The darkness lasted two hours.  Then the rumbling stopped and light began to break.  Suddenly it was daylight again.  Outside everything looked so beautiful, covered with ash that was so white and bright.  Radio announcements told us more eruptions were imminent.

On Saturday, June 15, I went to celebrate 6:00 am Mass with the Benedictine Sisters who lived near the coast of the South China Sea.  It was a dark morning and a typhoon was approaching.  After I finished Mass a rain that looked like heavy soot began to fall.  It was getting darker and I decided to go home immediately.

Journal of Fear

At 8:30 am shortly after I arrived home total darkness descended and the awful sequence of events began — thunder, lightning, earthquakes.  The radio had gone silent.  I huddled in my chair and tried to read by candlelight. But all I could feel and hear was the awful constant roar.  Alone and terrified I went to my bedroom to lie down.  Suddenly the windows were smashed in.  I ran out to the living room and lay under the heavy oak table trembling and waiting for the avalanche of ash and rocks to destroy the house.  After half an hour I emerged from under the table.  It was then, and out of fear that I was going to die, that I began to write an hour-by-hour diary of events.

Face to face with death

I will never forget that day that seemed to stretch on and on.  I went into the pare room and lay under the bed but the movement of the floor, constantly shaken by the earthquakes, was too great.  So I crawled out and lay on the bed.  I covered my face with a pillow so that when death came people might be able to identify me.  I waited and prayed – a constant prayer of fear.  Finally, totally exhausted by terror I fell asleep.  It was about 9:00 pm.

I was tossed out of the bed by an earthquake by 4:00 am.  The first thing that struck me was the brightness of the room.  Opening the windows I saw the whole area covered in volcanic ash.  It seemed as if the town had been hit by a tremendous snowstorm.

The fury of lahar

The church, the school, homes and buildings were destroyed.  Trees had been bent and twisted by the fury of the eruption.  In the weeks following a further tragedy was to befall the people.  The heavy monsoon rains from June to October swept the volcanic debris down into the fertile plains of Tarlac and Pampanga.  Since the nearest sea was Manila Bay a few hundred miles away the rivers became clogged with volcanic debris and then volcanic ash (lahar) swept across sugarcane fields and rice land, turning them into a white desert.  People who had enjoyed a comfortable life were reduced to poverty.  Today, much of that land remains unclaimed.

The province of Zambales where Cabangan is located is situated fared a bit better since it is a narrow strip of land hemmed in by the Zambales mountains and the South China Sea.  Most of the volcanic debris was carried to the sea a short distance away.

Bayanihan Spirit

When I saw the destruction on that morning of June 15,  I asked myself, “God, what will I do?”  The response began to come immediately from the Filipino people.  They came from all over Luzon – ordinary people, students, doctors and nurses, bishops, priests and sisters.  I will not easily forget their love and concern for their fellow countrymen and women.  Week after week they came bringing medicine, food, spades, wheelbarrows and seeds. It took tremendous courage to travel in those days because one did not know if there would be another great eruption. Rumor fed on rumor and this generated fear and panic.  And still these wonderful people came bringing not only needed materials but also hope, and that special quality of the Filipinos, the “bayanihan spirit” of coming together to help one another.  And gradually people began to reshape their lives.

Because they are determined

It was terribly hard for them.  Trying to till land covered by a blanket of ash was agonizing.  But they did it and today most of the rice lands are fertile again.  However the farmers tell me that they get only a third of what they used to harvest in the past.  One can only admire the resilience, courage and determination of these people.  The cost to the people and the country was enormous.  At the beginning there was the loss of life, property and source of livelihood.  Work goes on continuously to dredge the rivers.  Massive dykes had to be built to control the flow of lahar during the rainy season.  Again and again bridges and roads have to be repaired.

The eruption of Mount Pinatubo was described as an ecological disaster.  Looking at the land covered in volcanic ash and debris I might be tempted to agree that the disaster was absolute.  But perhaps earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are necessary or otherwise planet earth might die.

A rich land

Yes, I have seen the destruction and desolation caused by the volcano but I have also seen vegetation and plant life appear on hills and mountains that lay waste and barren before the eruption.  Coral reefs that had been destroyed by dynamite fishing are beginning to come alive again through the massive fall of volcanic ash on the South China Sea.

When the Spaniards saw the central plain of Zambales in the 16th century they were amazed at two things – absence of people and the richness of the land and the forests.  There had been an eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the 12th century.  Maybe it was then the people living close to the mountain fled.  Over the centuries, life with a greater richness and fertility was restored to a land that seemed to be destined to be forever a desert.

While there is life

Someone asked me once if there was one memory in particular that would always remain from this chapter of my life.  Yes, there is.

A few weeks after the eruption I went to one of the villages close to Mount Pinatubo.  The land had been devastated, the rice fields and fruit trees destroyed.  Many of their houses and the church were flattened.  It was near annual fiesta time.  “Will we have our fiesta Mass this year?”  I asked, looking around at the desolation.  “Oh! Yes, Father, we want to offer a Mass of thanksgiving.”  I thought of the suffering, the demolished homes and fruit trees and said, “Why do you wish to offer a Mass of thanksgiving?”  “Ah!  Father,” they replied, “we are alive.”

Salamat sa Far East