BENCHWARMER

Scenes 17 years ago tomorrow
Ramon S. Dacawi

Two women neighbors, not on speaking terms for years, finally broke their mutual vow of silence just after the killer quake hit Baguio 17 years ago tomorrow. Forced by after-shocks to move into the safety of tents pitched on the main street of South Sanitary Camp Barangay, they talked again -- in peace.

Residents loved to tell the story they swore was true. In those days of gloom and ruin everybody needed to speak, to open up, listen and hold on to each other. Or to something, anything that inspired. They learned to be neighbors again.

More so when rumors in Metro-Manila had it that Baguio and remote towns of Benguet Province were no more. Humor - as much as stories of reconciliation, courage,generosity and sacrifice - helped keep hope alive and restore sanity.

So somebody came up with another anecdote – apocryphal and morbid as it was - that spread around fast. He said there's this college teacher trapped on the roof of a multi-story building. His students on the ground spread their arms out to catch him. Just as he jumped, an after-shock rattled the building - and the nerves of the young rescuers.

They dispersed before he landed Even one-liners helped. "Shot da nga shot kada adda after-shock," one resident observed of how news reporters calmed stress with alcohol while covering the grim and ghastly aftermath. Rescuers, too, steeled themselves against exhaustion - and from giving up - with shots of gin. Against the stench of death, someone, anyone could still be alive beneath mountains of rubble they were clearing with crude tools or bare hands.

Two nights after the temblor struck, miners from Philex and Balatoc and cadets from the Philippine Military Academy hit pay dirt. From the collapsed Nevada Hotel, they pulled out Sonia Roco, for over 48 hours encased between two huge beams that also spared her life.

“God must love me so much I’m still alive,” she whispered as an ambulance on standby rushed her to a hospital, her husband, Sen. Raul Roco, by her side. The quake, 7.7 on the Richter scale, hit while she was in a conference for non-government organizations. The time was 4:26 p.m., as reflected by watches and clocks that had stopped and later retrieved from the debris.

Rejoining the rescuers, Sen.Roco relayed what she said. He added he was not a doctor and had told his wife he would be of better use helping find others still trapped in the building. Newsman Willy Cacdac, then writing for The Philippine Star, just couldn't rouse two photographers who fell asleep while waiting for the rescue. He grabbed a camera from the lap of one and hurriedly focused on the uplifting scene of rescuers lifting her out of the hotel portal and into an ambulance.

The Nikon just wouldn't click. Before he could figure out how to unlock the shutter through the winder, it was over. Still, he had a moving story to write. He was just glad that he, too, was alive, then shuddered over the after-thought of what might have been.

Willy was on coverage inside the Baguio Park Hotel along Harrison Rd. a few hours before the earth shook. Enterprise hosted a reception to celebrate the first draw of a small town lottery (similar to what is being proposed before the city council this earthquake anniversary month.).

Declining another shot of brandy, he took off to write a story on the first draw of the controversial numbers game, done the morning in front of city hall. Making the rounds later, he saw the hotel in shambles. Twelve persons had been killed inside, as per report of then city health officer, Dr. Florita Garcia. The report, retrieved last week by city health officer, Dr. Florence Reyes, listed a total of 249 casualties in Baguio. Dr. Garcia qualified that the list covered those with death certificates.

On her 37th day with volunteers, Dr. Garcia wrote then Health Secretary Alfredo Bengzon: "Without your staff and material assistance, we would have failed tremendously." To Undersecretary Mario Taguiwalo, she wrote: "Your technical advice and moral support have made me braver. Otherwise, I would have been desperate and emotionally unstable."

Support from all over poured in as soon as the obliterated portions of roads linking Baguio to the rest of the world were reconnected, shoring up hopes for fast recovery. Barely 11 months after the earthquake, it was the turn of Baguio and the Cordillera to reach out.

Four days after Mt. Pinatubo started blowing its top and spreading its ashes over Central Luzon on June 9, 1991, the Baguio media launched "Operation Sayote", one of the longest relief missions to the plains. Four years after the volcanic eruption, lahar flow was still wreaking havoc.

In Guagua town, "Operation Sayote" volunteers, who had just arrived with a truckload of goods, watched helicopters hover and airlifted residents marooned on rooftops of half-submerged houses. Later, they saw thousands of evacuees, some glassy-eyed, at the multi-purpose center in San Fernando City. "Buhay ang nawala sa inyo no'ng isang taon sa Baguio," a resident told the volunteers.

He was watching a murky mix of lahar and floodwater creeping in, turning his green rice field into gray. "Kabuhayan naman ang nawawala sa amin ngayon." Seventeen years to the day of the temblor tomorrow, kids, who were not yet born then, will repair to the Busol Watershed, to plant trees for those who perished.

The late newsman Peppot Ilagan broached the idea of trees as living memorials in 1997. The city council then had agreed on cold stone or iron marker, but was divided on where it should be installed. “At the Burnham Park,” one alderman suggested. “It would give a morbid ambience to the park,” another shot back. “Have it at the city cemetery,” another proposed. “No one will be there to read it,” still another observed. ( to be continued. Email rdacawi@yahoo.com for comments) .