By Joel B. Belinan
As the Philippine celebrated its Independence Day last June 12, 1991, Mt. Pinatubo in Zambales suddenly awoke from more than 600 years of slumber. The explosion was touted as the second strongest volcano eruption in recent history, next to St. Helens of Italy. This hastened the evacuation of the US armed forces from Subic Naval base and Clark Air base whose contracts were earlier not renewed by the Philippine Senate. Four smaller satellite US bases, the Camp John Hay, Puro-Point, Fort McKinley and Sangley Point were also vacated.
During that exact time of eruption I was with a colleague in our Ananda Marga Yoga Organization in Bombay City (now Mumbai) particularly at the lounge area of our favorite travel agency trying to kill time. We watched the actual explosion captured by CNN on a large TV screen along with a dozen of foreign nationals. “It would be wonderful to actually watch from nearby such an explosion,” many were telling us. Of course we did not know the catastrophic impact that eruption was about to bring to the surrounding areas. Two days later we were back in our office in Singapore to be met by ash fall caused st by the Pinatubo eruption.
Days after, the destruction it caused Central Luzon was found to be massive and became worse as the months and years passed. The incident created a worldwide interest on this little known sleeping volcano that suddenly got awakened. Fast-forward in March of 1993 or two years later. While I was still in Singapore, I got a call from a colleague in Angeles City asking me if I could lead an expedition to the Mt. Pinatubo crater. Incidentally, I was scheduled to go back to Manila the following week and so without hesitation, I said, yes. Upon arrival, I contacted the guy in Angeles City to get the needed information in preparation for the expedition. These included some moving and still footages on the crater where a dome-like Island was formed in the middle. These were taken from US military choppers with high-tech cameras which only scientists from advanced countries had.
From what I saw on the footages, while before the eruption the indigenous people there, specially the Aetas or Balugas, were passing through the volcano like it were an ordinary mountain, there was no telling how to reach the top two years after with all the mountain ranges nearby turned into dessert-like environments covered by pyroclastic materials that became lahar. So my anxiety on how to undertake the trek became serious.
Then came the day to start our journey. Our group was composed of myself, my AM (Ananda Marga) brothers Dyanesh (Dennis Regala) and Indra (Guy Hilbero), and four Aeta friends from the sub-tribe that used to live near the area that became the volcano crater. Their leader was Apong Jungle, a veteran jungle survival instructor to the American servicemen in Subic and Clark. He was assisted by his son-in law named Pambulaglag (one name only). Our Aeta friends carried our safety gears for mountain climbing that included ropes, and food and water. They also served as guides. I still remember the comment of one of the Aetas. “Baka hindi yan makalakad mamaya”, referring to me. I did not respond pretending not to have heard it. But Guy Hilbero who was the Aetas’ contact said, don’t worry that guy maybe very fair in skin but he is an Igorot born and raised on the mountains of the Cordillera which are many times higher than Mt. Pinatubo.
We started to walk at exactly 4:00 in the morning following the Florida Blanca River to the nearest jump-off point. At 7:00 AM we were already out on the hilly lahar area where we could only see white and gray colors of boulders and hardened dunes. It was there where the Philippine Air Force helicopter based at Clark passed through us several times to see how we were doing. Some of the soldiers took photos of us. In fact, one of the very first photos used by the Department of Tourism (DOT) region III in their brochure to promote Mt. Pinatubo as an eco-tourist destination was a photo of us during that climb.
The expedition turned out to be a very hard one. First, because the environment created by the eruption and the lahar resulted in a new one completely strange to Filipinos. It turned the surroundings into a new type of dessert. Second, because we did not anticipate such obstacles so we were not fully prepared. Third, that even our supposed guides were clueless on how to deal with the situation especially in tracking the right direction as the old topography had been completely erased. The very first day gave as the sample of the coming days. We were walking on a virtual dessert, and under the heat of the sun the temperature rose to 50 to 58 degrees Celsius.
As the head of the expedition, I gave the order to set up camp early on the first day. As advised in the book ‘The Freedom of the Hills,’ considered the bible of mountaineering, the first day of an expedition should not be that rigorous to enable bodies to adapt. We started early (4:00 AM) again on the second day as we anticipated the very high temperature by noon. At around 8:00 AM, the chopper of the Philippine Air force that passed over us the first day again flew a couple of times above us. It may have given us an assurance of safety although after it disappeared I knew that we were on our own. Again we set up camp early. Earlier that day at around 3:00 PM the Aetas and even Indra were pointing to a mountain in the western direction saying that that was Mt. Pinatubo. During the night, I calculated that we had been covering a distance of at least 50 to 55 kms per day. That was extremely fast by mountaineering standards. The problem was that what was a straight path of 6 to 7 kms distance before the eruption might have been tripled or quadrupled due to pyroclastic materials that engulfed every inch in the area. ** (To be continued next week.)
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