With the eruption of Taal last Sunday, January 12, 2020, there came an irruption or outbreak of languages.
These languages were in the form of words and images. They were reporting about the day when a volcano in their midst had erupted. But even that eruption would be questioned as alert levels were issued.
What does Alert Level 4 mean? Does that mean there is no eruption yet?
What is the difference between a magma and a lava? Are explosions and eruptions one and the same?
The second day of the Volcano eruption produced more images. Each one as “stunning” as the other. Stunning was the word of the day. But even that word became strangely contentious. Online, citizens were summoning ethics in the use of the word. Was it ethical to call attention to the beauty of the volcano when people were suffering? Or were being pushed out of their habitat?
As online debates raged about the use of modifiers about beauty, other individuals continued to send in images of ash-covered towns, lightning gilding the plume of clouds shooting up 14 kilometers to 15 km up the graying sky because, whether we like it or not, the volcano was becoming the origin of terrible beauty.
Were we confronting what Albert Camus called “Beauty that was unbearable?”
On the 15th of January, it was reported that a group of Batangueños danced a Subli, a dance performed before the Cross. The ritual is performed for propitious events but it is, like the Perdon in Bikol, and the neighboring areas, done when there are calamities or deaths.
We pray to the Lord when we have a good harvest; we pray to Him also when floods come, children die, and volcanoes erupt.
Geologists remind us of geologic time. This volcanic eruption in the life of Taal is a speck in geologic time, which reckons periods in terms of millions of years and not in days or weeks.
What are we in geologic time? The tremors and steam-generated explosions have nothing to do with our sins and iniquities, as science would claim.
It is easy to think like a geologist until one hears from a kin who maintains with her husband a lovely café with a view of the erupting volcano. Hours after Lia Monteverde posted a photo of smoke from Taal, her notes started trickling in: Our phones are dying…. Taal Volcano eruption is imminent now. Got no power since 3 p.m…. We are up and can’t sleep. The whole town has evacuated… Earthquakes every five to 15 minutes and getting stronger. House is ok but worried about the animals. The trees are falling and branches cracking and breaking from the weight of the ashfall, which is now mud fall. Talisay is now part of mandatory evacuation. But it’s pitch dark. The air has stench from sulfur…Waiting for daylight to leave because the roads are blocked from fallen trees and muddy from the wet ash. Talisay and the other towns surrounding the lake are now ghost towns. We have no idea what’s going on outside….Praying we will be fine.
The stunning photos flooded the Internet after this notification from Lia.
On the second day came another post from Lia. They decided to evacuate, to leave Talisay: At 4 a.m. we walked through mud. It was so dark and slippery I fell. It was a night after full moon…. The trees looked like weeping shadows… All branches bent, heavy with silt and mud…. We know all our plants and trees would be dead….
Lia shared more photos. She described them as “when the colors went out.” The land was gray; the plants were white; the rest were shadows of black. Then came the photo of a horse, stolid as if transformed into a pallid marble statue. The animal was covered in ash. It stood there, seemingly waiting for nothing.
The volcanologists initiated their bulletin. A female volcanologist started by explaining the seeming “absence” of warning. There was, apparently, a warning in terms of the issuance of Alert Levels. But our leaders wanted something more of the sound and fury type. Like their speeches.
At present, the Congress has proposed conducting an investigation to this “failure of announcement.” As the volcano rumbles, our elected leaders are grumbling. They want to investigate the eruption, “why there were no warnings.” This investigation would be, presumably, in aid of legislation. As usual.
But how does one legislate Nature?
What is the latest photo in my memory? A group of men and women and children, even of infants, their bodies covered in ash. They are bathing themselves, the only recourse to remove the wrath of gods on them.
Lia and Emil and her siblings had returned for awhile to their café, and distributed the bread in that house to policemen and rescuers. They, like other civilians, have started helping those who have been affected by the eruption. The sugar-free cookies and ice-cream Lia had promised me if I had gone to Café Diem have to wait.
We have to wait. The volcanologists cannot promise when the eruption will end. Only politicians are promising many things about the volcano.
The government, meanwhile, has announced the call for donations. As usual. People are not responding directly to this misplaced emotional blackmail. People have learned. A great majority of our people can see the machinations of the administration. People think it is about time the government should spend the fund intended for days when nature teaches us lessons in good governance.
This does not mean people are not helping. Many groups have already began to collect bottled water and foods to be distributed to the affected communities. The ordinary people will always go out of their ways to help neighbors and strangers. It is now, however, the turn of the extraordinary people composing the government to serve the people.
In the meantime, newscasters continue to grapple with the vowel sound in the word “imminent” to describe the coming eruption, so that we hear instead another word, “eminent.” The latter means “distinguished” or “illustrious,” two adjectives that, unfortunately, we can rarely give to the leaders of this misbegotten republic.
E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com
Image credits: Jimbo Albano