(A personal witness by the author written in 1991)
At first it was just one of those ordinary mornings. But as the day wore down, the sky was getting darker. There was news a few days before predicting it would happen. But a lot of people weren’t paying attention. Perhaps because they have no inkling of what it would bring actually. And the source of what was to happen was miles away from my city, about 30 miles off. No worries there.
As I commuted to my office, people on the streets were awestricken by ash particles that rained from above. Some of my officemates were also out looking and pointing their hands in the sky. I hurriedly joined them. And I saw giant mushroom-shaped clouds hovering far above us. It was a grey mass of clouds, but no it looked like clouds but it was different. It’s a massive heap of ash that we are seeing. Then I realized that the tiny flakes dropping all over were actually ashfall. It’s like the stuff that you see when a big building is razed by fire and ash particles go up with the smoke and eventually come down, in a very minor scale of course.
Then we were told to go home. The office was closed. As I trekked home, I saw business stores were also closing down. People were in a hurry to wrap up their day’s business and go to the safety of their homes. On that eventful day of the climactic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo on June 15, 1991, a volcano long considered to be dormant, the whole of my city was blanketed by constant deluge of mixed pyroclastic flows, sulfur and typhoon rain. The downpour made the city of Olongapo, Philippines looked like a ghost town. At 12 noon the whole place was pitch black. Streets were empty of people. The explosive eruption intermittently spewed skyward an enormous volume of sulfur and volcanic ash about 10 miles high; then it spiraled down to our city and the towns nearby for nearly two days with no let up. The city electric service was down. Fortunately we still had tap water on the first day, then no supply thereafter. We relied on rainwater we collected on big pails placed under roof gutters.
For nearly 40 hours the sun never shone, it was dark all over. Sulfur and rain inundated the city nonstop. Was it Tribulation already? The thought crossed my mind. We lived in an old house then. The roof started to leak due to the heavy downfall of pyroclastic ash and rain-saturation. Our house interior was soaking with water all over, there was no space to lie and sleep. I decided to send my wife and three children (my two elder sons were in college then and out of town) to my brother’s house nearby. His house was sturdier than ours. I opted to stay in our house to safeguard it. I was drenched and cold but there was no fear in me. I was fortified with peace and calm, the first time I perceived the peace that passes all understanding.
While alone inside the house I began to pray and ask for God’s mercy. I heard a sudden crack above me, on the roof. I peered through the ceiling and saw that the main rafters were about to give up. If they do, the whole roofing: iron sheets, beams, wood structure, rain and sulfur would come down. The night passed and I could not sleep; I spent the whole night praying. Morning came and somehow the city gained a slow reprieve from the downpour. For the first time in nearly two days, the sun smiled on us. People in my neighborhood gathered in the streets and started inspecting the damage. A house fronting us had its roof caved in, and also another beside us. The whole city was buried in two-foot thick volcanic sand: the streets, rooftops, vehicles and everything exposed to the aftermath of the eruption. I kept thanking God because once again He demonstrated His miracle to us. The roof of our house did not collapsed. I saw the roof beams punctured the ceiling but it held on. I knew God answered my prayer and sent angels to support our ceiling. Two years before I accepted Christ in my life.
Later on I learned that the volcanic ash fall and sulfur mudflows called <em>lahar</em> covered some 50,000 square miles of land area and almost three feet high overlaying 364 communities as well as the two U.S military bases in the region, Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base. Two towns were practically erased from the region’s map.
I joined the city mayor’s volunteer brigade to help in the city-wide rehabilitation efforts. For the first time, while assigned as one of the group monitoring and reporting progress in each area to the untiring and selfless leader city mayor Richard Gordon, I realized that many people lost their homes when their roofs plunged down due to the heavy load of sand and sulfur. Some of their loved ones also perished during the calamity. I felt the people’s restlessness and despair. There was heavy, huge and daunting work ahead of us. Through all this, I sensed that God was with us because in a month’s time only, the restoration of streets from debris and massive tons of volcanic sand was fully done.
During the month-long tasks where I was fully involved, God did not fail to give provisions to my family. The last company pay I received just before the Pinatubo eruptions, He stretched until end of July that year or to one and half month. Again that was a miracle I could not comprehend because normally my two week pay could only cover just that, a two-week period. We had a savings left in our bank account but God did not allow us to draw from it. He thought us a lesson to draw from Him instead.
Months after the horrifying and historic disaster, as people were still recovering, it occurred to me that the event also brought God’s blessings upon my city. In the same year, due to the contract ending of the lease of the U.S Naval Base located here and the Navy’s consideration of the huge expenditure to rehabilitate the bases, the U.S. Navy and the Philippine government decided not to renew the basing agreement. The business landscape of the city dramatically changed. Bars and night clubs that formerly catered to the Navy suddenly had no business to exist. All these establishments were closed. Thus decades of social and moral issues brought by the military base existence and the entertainment bars have been eliminated. In its place a Freeport was established and hosts of foreign investors put up manufacturing, industry, shipping, and finance and support businesses. Employment therein tripled compared to naval facility jobs before. New businesses and commercial services in the city mushroomed to service the Freeport. The community was given a chance to start afresh, rebuild its economy, its social structure and moral character. It was reported that church attendance more than doubled after the tragedy. Indeed when God closes a door, he opens another. God is good, all the time.