FIVE
Remembering Mount Pinatubo's Wrath
"I will never forget that day," my sister Lisa narrates, as we set the dinner table at Malia's house. "It was day time, but when Carlos and I stepped out of the grocery store in Dau, we saw that it was so dark like night and it was raining ash all around. People were screaming and running in all directions, covering their faces from the gritty ash and smell of sulfur. We were very confused. We had never seen anything like it. I thought of my children right away and chastised myself for not being with them. The cell phones were not working so I could not call home. I was frantic. Driving home, we could hardly see anything. The windshield wipers could not wash off the sticky ash well enough for Carlos to see the road. So I would get out of the car often and wipe it off with grocery bags."
Lisa pauses for a moment. I feel her grief. She clears her throat and continues. "It was the longest drive home. I thought we’d never get there. The lahar was already thick around the house. We found our children at the corner of the living room huddled together, crying. They jumped when they saw us. We hugged each other so tight. I was afraid I’d never see them again."
I wrap my arm around my sister to comfort her. "You’re lucky that you incurred damages only on material things. You still have your family, and everybody is healthy."
Malia enters the dining room with a huge serving plate of prawns from the fresh waters of Pangasinan Province. My mouth waters at the sight of the yummy anthropods steamed in lemon, garlic and salt. As always, Malia made sure they had these insects to welcome me every time I came back to visit. They’re my favorite. They taste so fresh and delightful. I grab the plate from her and set it on the table.
Malia turns to me. "Go ahead. I know you’re just dying to grab one . . . or two."
"Oh, thank you, thank you," I exclaim, and pick the biggest prawn I can find. "I had so looked forward to these since I decided to come back. There’s nothing like them in the world. They’re absolutely to die for."
Malia chuckles. "Well, glad to satisfy your cravings."
While eating my first prawn, I continue to set the table while Lisa helps Malia in the kitchen. As I retrieve plates from the antique china cabinet I notice the valuable sets of dinnerware, glassware and silverware that I don't remember. She'd been busy shopping in Manila again since the last time I was here. I wander around and peruse the expensive furniture and other decorative things around the house. Imported, luxurious items from the U.S., Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand and India ostentatiously display my sister’s materialistic consumption in life.
Malia reenters the dining room with a pot of shrimp soup we call sinigang-- a favorite comfort food that is distinctly Filipino as chicken soup is to America. And for me tor me, the more sour it is, the better; this is done by adding more kalamansi (fresh lime or lemon juice) and raw tamarind. "It's amazing, isn’t it?" Malia says when she finds me looking at her material possessions, "You spend a lot of time and money buying all this to make the house look nice, then one day, it all suddenly becomes so unimportant and worthless."
One of Mount Pinatubo's legacies might be surmised as an awakening to what is truly material in life - life itself. As my sisters plan to move their families to the U.S., they consider following the principle of scant materialism. "I have donated a lot of it to charity," Malia says. "Since we can't take most of it with us to the States, a lot more will be donated to the needy."
The front door opens and enter Johnny, Clara, and their three daughters The girls start screaming and attacking me with their hugs and kisses.
"Auntie! You look more beautiful than the last time I saw you!"
"Auntie! You look so sexy!"
"Auntie, did you bring us pasalubong (homecoming gifts)?"
"You guys don't have to flatter me just to find out if I brought presents, or not. But of course, I did. But after dinner, okay?"
"There they are!" screams one of the girls, pointing to the wrapped packages at the corner of the living room.
Quickly, the three girls run toward the gifts. Malia's and Lisa's children come running down the stairs after hearing their cousins’ excited voices. It’s so great to see my nieces and nephews enjoy each other – just like my siblings and I did when we were young -- something that our other relatives have always envied in us.
"You do look so young, so slim and beautiful!" my sister-in-law says. "You’re the youngest-looking 32-year old I’ve ever seen."
"Thank you, thank you." I say bowing to Clara.
"It’s funny," Malia says, "when Mary was only 14, she would lie about her age, claiming she was already 16 or older. And she looked it, too."
"Because I always acted more mature than my elders," I say defensively, but it’s true that I’ve always looked and acted older than my older sisters."
"And why would she claim to be older?" Inquires Clara.
"To get older boys," Malia replies jokingly then her speech turns serious. "Actually, so she can find a job and help put food on the table for you," she says, pointing at Johnny and Lisa. "That was the time when Pa was stabbed many times and was hospitalized for two weeks, remember?"
The children are horrified.
"Grandpa was stabbed?"
"Why was he stabbed?"
"Who stabbed him?"
"Did they catch the bad guy?"
We should not have mentioned the stabbing to the kids. The last thing we want is for them to have any bad impression of our father. It’s bad enough that they’d never met their grandfather; there’s no reason for them to know the dark secrets in the family.
"There, there," Malia addresses the children. "It was a mistaken identity, and yes, they caught the bad guy. Case closed. Now, let's all gather at the table while everything is still hot."
Theo, Malia’s husband, arrives from work just in time for the grace.
* * *
After dinner, we assemble in the living room. As always, I put on my Santa Maria hat, and one by one, I hand my gifts to everybody. It’s a homecoming tradition, like Christmas.
"Auntie, are these our homecoming pasalubong?"
"Yes. Auntie, do we get more gifts for Christmas?"
"Now, kids," Malia admonishes, "that's not nice to ask."
"That's all right, Malia. Yes, kids, I have Christmas gifts for you. You see that big box there at the other corner? Those are it."
The children start screaming again in excitement..
"Can we look at them later?"
"Can we count them?"
"Sure," I say. More excited screaming.
I am so pleased that they all like their respective gifts, and all the clothes fit the intended recipients. I never get any gift from anyone. It’s my choice and I demand it. I have everything I need in life and I don’t want any more gifts that I might not need or want, and won’t know what to do with them. Sometimes I give them away or donate them to Goodwill. After clearing the living room of the wrapping paper and boxes, we start another tradition: Karaoke. Everybody must sing, and sing we do, no matter how bad some of us perform. A few of the kids are very good, but Theo might as well be a professional singer. He is a very successful regional sales manager for Abbott Laboratories, a U.S. pharmaceutical firm. Once he gets a hold of the microphone, he can sing all night long, and sometimes we let him.
As the kids have gone back upstairs to play, and Theo has stopped singing songs from the Sixties, the adults stay in the living room and chat some more. I would like to stir the conversation towards Mama's issue of all-out forgiveness, but I can’t seem to find the perfect opportunity. Either that, or they manage to keep these issues away from the topics of discussion. That’s all right. We’ll have plenty of time for that. There’s still so much to catch up on. I am particularly interested in hearing more about the details of their experiences during the volcano eruption and their evacuation and refuge to Cavite City--our father's birthplace. Because of the high cost of overseas wireless long distance calls, their stories were always short and condensed when they called the U.S. to keep us informed of what was going on.
Malia recalls vividly how she found Mama in her room gripping a rosary in both hands, fear in her eyes. "I ushered Ma into the living room where Theo and the kids nervously clung to each other on the sofa. We didn’t know what was going on. Something was rumbling awfully loud, like elephants stampeding toward us, making the house dance. The noise was unbearable and frightening. We thought the world was coming to an end. Suddenly, heavy mud-like rain came down continuously. We thought the roof was going to cave in on us. Then Johnny called. Thank goodness some of the land phones still worked. He told us to pack our essential stuff and evacuate to Cavite. We could not get in touch with Lisa; luckily, they decided to drive to our house."
"Before the eruption," Clara remembers, "I thought I saw what looked like steam or smoke coming from the top of the mountain. I shrugged it off as clouds."
"Some complained why it was never taught in schools," Lisa says. "I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know anything about it . . . and I was a school teacher."
"Nobody I know had ever heard of Mount Pinatubo till its eruption," says Malia.
"Why there were no early warnings and evacuation plans was beyond me," says Johnny.
"Back in the States," I interpose, "I saw on TV where the vulcanologists and the U.S. military officials were talking to the Aeta tribes and urging them to evacuate days before the eruption."
"I’m not surprised," says Johnny. "The Americans love the Aetas. Do you know that they train the soldiers how to survive in the jungles?"
I nod in agreement. "Yes, I’ve read that somewhere."
"Don’t you know," Lisa addresses Johnny, "that Mary knows everything about the Aetas? I think she was once an Aeta tribal princess thousands of years ago."
"Don’t even get her started on that," Malia says amused. "Next thing you know, she’d be asking Johnny here to take her to their resettlement areas."
I smiled secretly because, as a matter of fact, that was on my agenda. Johnny did not hear what Malia has just said. He’s still brooding over the lack of communication from the government about the eruption. He has always disliked the local politicians and he condemns them every chance he gets. "Our inept local officials should have at least made a public announcement that a nearby volcano was threatening to erupt," he says.
The warning did come - just shortly before the mountain first exploded -- before the "big one" -- and it was a little late. Most people did not hear the radio announcement, and the cops with the bullhorn urging everyone to evacuate did not have enough time to warn everyone before the eruption. Johnny gathered his wife and daughters and evacuated their new home. Together, Johnny, Malia and Lisa and their families formed a convoy and joined the caravan of crawling vehicles and walking humanity, some pulling their carabaos, goats, chickens and pigs behind them. They fled their homes and hoped to find safety somewhere.
My family would find their refuge in Cavite City, where relatives welcomed them with open arms. Abacan Bridge, the main artery connecting Angeles City, Mabalacat and the Clark Air Force Base collapsed shortly after the small family fleet crossed it. "We wondered if our homes would still be standing when we returned," Malia says.
Close to a thousand people would perish in the calamity, and hundreds of thousands would lose their homes or their livelihood, or both.
"Back home," I recollect, "I watched in horror as the event unfolded on TV. Lety kept in touch with me from San Diego several times a day. We were very worried about Ma. With her history of heart problems and diabetes, what if her medicines got lost in the chaos? Would she be able to obtain those medicines there? As you know, telephone communication was out of service in the region and we were totally out of touch with all of you. Not even text messaging worked."
"Yes, it was great when we finally got connected to you," says Malia. We were already in Cavite then. Everybody was okay. The children were actually having a good time with their cousins. But Ma, obviously traumatized by it all, was always anxious. Her blood pressure was up, but not dangerously high. She had all her medicines with her. She was good about that, which was really amazing because most of the time, she’s very forgetful."
"We stayed at cousin Lolita’s house in Cavite," Johnny says. "It worked out great for everybody. Lolita’s family was vacationing in Boracay then and won’t be back for another week. Only the maid was staying in the big house. Lolita was very happy to hear from her short-term refugee cousins and willingly offered her home to us. But on one condition: that we would not leave till her family got back so we could have a family reunion with all the other relatives in Cavite."
Theo, who had stopped singing to join the group discussions, contributes his memorable experiences about the Cavite relatives. "I had never really gotten to know your Cavite clan until then. I had the best time of my life with the male characters. Now, I don’t know if this is true, or not, but they told me that the reason why your genealogy records don’t go beyond your grandfather’s clan is because your great, great grandfather changed the spelling of your family name and moved out of Cebu where he originally came from, so he could never be traced. Apparently, he was such a shady character -- a big gambler who owed big time money to many people in Cebu. And women. There were also many women who were after him. So, I guess this womanizing thing is —."
A nudge in the elbow by Malia stops Theo from completing his sentence. But he didn’t need to for I already know what he meant to say.
"I’ve heard that story before," I say. "It’s such a colorful story, but nobody really knows if it’s true or not."
A soulful ballad starts playing on the radio. I’ve heard that song many times since I arrived in the Philippines: at the airport, in traffic, in Johnny’s SUV. "Wow, that song is really popular, isn’t it?" I observe.
I immediately notice something curious in the way my brother and sisters surreptitiously looked at each other.
"Do you know what it’s about?" Johnny asks.
"Something about a woman whose entire family died in the eruption?"
"Yes, and it’s a true story," Johnny replies. "It’s about a Balikbayan nurse named Rosario who returned to her hometown of Bacolor with her bank savings, jewelry and other valuable goods. She wanted to build a nice home for her mother and share her good fortune in the States with her brother and sister. The family and their relatives and friends celebrated her homecoming and generosity with a huge feast and barrels of San Miguel beer. The party went on through the night. Everyone in the household was still asleep when Pinatubo erupted. The volcano took everyone’s life. Rosario had left the house early to go to the bank and see a building contractor. Her life was spared . . . but not her sanity. She never returned to the States. People say that they sometime see her roaming the ghost town like a phantom in the night."
It sounds like a fable made for movies. Is my brother over-dramatizing a story again? He’s been known to embellish tales to captivate and entertain his audience. Could this be one of those?
"That’s an incredible and tragic story," I declare. "Who’s this woman; do you know?"
"Umm . . . not really."
I threw him a quizzical look. I think he’s lying. I think he knows who the woman is. But why would he lie about it?
"Pinatubo truly left a lot of legacies for us to reflect on," I ponder. "And there’s got to be a silver lining to all this."
Malia frowns. "So far, I can’t think of any," she deliberates with a crisp tone of discontent. "It took my livelihood away."
Malia was a popular beautician inside Clark Air Force Base, which is situated at the base of the mountain, just a few miles from our house. On some weekends when she was off, some of her favorite customers would lease her for home service: hair styling, make up and manicure/pedicure - the works. Her income from tips was ten times more than her regular salary. All of that is gone now, of course, because this upheaval may have brought the permanent closure of the American Military presence in the Philippines. What the leftist anti-American Filipino rebels had tried to do in decades was accomplished by Pinatubo in mere seconds.
"At least your homes are still intact," Lisa laments. "Theo still has a wonderful job, making more than enough to support you and your children." She turns to Johnny. "And your business is doing even better now after Pinatubo’s eruption." She pauses and unleashes an exasperated sigh of self-pity that she doesn’t exhibit often. "I don’t know how long we’re going to be homeless."
"You’re not homeless," Malia says. "Our home is your home. It’s a big house. You can stay with us for as long as is necessary."
"You are a very good sister. How can we ever repay you?"
Johnny jokingly interrupts, pretending to wipe nonexistent tears in his eyes. "All right, all right. You’d better stop this mush. You’re making me cry."
"Well, it’s getting too late," Clara remarks. "Better get the kids and let’s go home."
"Good idea. I’m getting very tired myself."
Johnny gathers his daughters who refuse to go home. "We want to sleep here with our cousins. Please Dad, let us stay here."
"Why don’t you all stay here," Malia suggests. "The kids sleep upstairs, and the adults will camp out in the living room like we used to do when we were young."
"That’s a great idea," I second.
"How fun," Lisa says. "I’ll gather all the blankets and futons and pillows!"
Johnny’s girls excitedly run back upstairs screaming: "We’re staying! We’re staying!"
Clara shakes her head from left to right. "Well, some people are not going to be brushing their teeth tonight."
"One night of plaque is not going to kill us," Johnny says laughing.
"Don’t worry," says Malia. "We have enough extra toothbrushes for everyone."
What a reunion. What a homecoming celebration for me. This is so much fun. But wait till tomorrow . . . when Johnny takes me to Bacolor – the epicenter of the devastation from Pinatubo’s explosion. And in Mabalacat . . . to see the house our father built.
(End of Chapter Five)
Copyright 2006 writeartista All rights reserved.
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