Phivolcs honors former head Punongbayan

Children ask: Why are there earthquakes? Why do volcanoes erupt?

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) and the Rotary Club of Midtown Diliman will answer those questions during a seminar on disaster awareness for children that will be held at Phivolcs headquarters on July 2 as part of the observance of Disaster Awareness Month.

As an introduction to the observance, the Phivolcs and the Rotary Club of Midtown Diliman launched a disaster-awareness drive on Wednesday, the 75th birth anniversary of the late Phivolcs Director Raymundo S. Punongbayan.

The Phivolcs paid tribute to Punongbayan through a memorabilia exhibit in cooperation with Punongbayan’s son, Stauro T. Punongbayan, president of Rotary Club of Midtown Diliman.

American-trained geologist Raymundo Santiago Punongbayan was the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s first Filipino of the Year awardee, chosen in 1991 after his rise to national prominence at the height of the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo on June 15 that year.

Accurate predictions

Punongbayan’s accurate predictions at the onset of the eruption led to evacuations of towns and villages below the volcano in the tripoint of Zambales, Tarlac and Pampanga provinces, saving tens of thousands of lives.

Among those who fled the danger zone were US Air Force personnel and their families, who left Clark Air Base in Pampanga just days before the 20th century’s second biggest volcanic eruption.

The first was the Mt. Novarupta eruption in Alaska in 1912, but Mt. Pinatubo’s plinian eruption—a very explosive terrestrial eruption—was complicated by heavy rain and strong winds generated by a typhoon.

The pinpoint accuracy of Punongbayan’s predictions helped tens of thousands of people in Central Luzon escape the lethal mix of volcanic ash and rain.

But the areas surrounding Pinatubo were severely damaged by fiery pyroclastic flows, heavy ashfalls and, subsequently, lahar—which ordinary Filipinos had never heard of until the volcano erupted.

Primer of deadly terms

It was Punongbayan who explained those deadly things to them on radio and television day and night as the volcano unleashed its destructive power.

Until that day 21 years ago, Pinatubo had been dormant for 600 years. A peak on the Zambales Mountain Range rising 1,785 meters (5,725 feet), it first rumbled for weeks, which gave the Phivolcs under Punongbayan time to track the rise of magma from the vowels of the earth and predict the eruption, all the while warning residents of the surrounding areas to get out of a 10-kilometer danger zone.

Still, the eruption left 847 people dead, 184 injured, and 23 missing. It displaced more than 1 million people and destroyed hundreds of millions of pesos in private property and public infrastructure, which would take tens of billions of pesos and several years to rebuild.

The effects of the eruption were felt worldwide. For months, the ejected volcanic particles remained suspended in the atmosphere. Winds dispersed them to other parts of the globe, reaching as far as Russia and North America.

The aerosols—injected into the atmosphere in amounts larger than any eruptions since Mt. Krakatoa in 1883—formed a global layer of sulfuric acid haze that caused the world’s temperatures to drop by an average of 1 degree Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit).

Forces of nature

But volcanic eruptions, Stauro Punongbayan said, quoting his father’s teachings, were “not to be feared.”

They are “something to be admired,” he said in an interview with the Inquirer.

“We don’t need to be hysterical about earthquakes,” he added.

That is, if we understand these forces of nature and know what to do to minimize their destructive effects.

The Phivolcs under Punongbayan first led a disaster-awareness campaign after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake damaged large swaths of Central Luzon on June 16, 1990.

More than 1,600 people died as the quake toppled buildings and houses within an area of 20,000 square kilometers. Worst hit were Cabanatuan City in Nueva Ecija province, where the six-story Christian College of the Philippines collapsed, and the mountain resort city of Baguio, where the five-star Hyatt Terraces hotel fell.

The quake, centered near the town of Rizal, Nueva Ecija, rocked tall buildings in Metropolitan Manila, where three people died in stampedes.

The earthquake caused a 125-kilometer-long rupture that stretched from Dingalan, Aurora province, to Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija province, as a result of movements along two faults in the Philippine Fault System, which includes a line that cuts across Metro Manila.

This line moves every 300 years, Punongbayan said as he called attention to the vulnerability of the metropolis following the Central Luzon quake.

If a big one hits this fault, he said, the devastation would be unimaginable.

The government began to look into the weaknesses of the metropolis, but development continued, though, according to developers, following standards prescribed for really big earthquakes.

Disaster preparedness

Disaster mitigation, or emergency management, is one of his father’s advocacies, Stauro Punongbayan said.

“It is the discipline of dealing with and avoiding risks,” he explained. “It involves preparing for disaster before it occurs,” he said. It’s called disaster response, and it includes emergency evacuation, quarantine, mass decontamination, among other reactions to calamity caused by nature.

Stauro, whose name his father got from staurolite—a reddish brown, mostly opaque mineral with a white streak—said his dad shared his knowledge of volcanoes with him.

He said he joined his father on trips to Taal, Mayon and Bulusan volcanoes.

“My dad wanted to showcase Taal volcano as a very good tourist spot,” he said. “He would go to the crater and describe how beautiful it was.”

Volcano watch

When Pinatubo erupted, Stauro said, Phivolcs had offices at its old building on Quezon Avenue in Quezon City.

The agency has since moved to its new location on C.P. Garcia Street near the entrance to the University of the Philippines’ campus in Diliman.

Stauro recalled that his dad practically lived at the old Phivolcs office as he and his staff monitored the Pinatubo crisis that started on June 7, 1991.

On June 12, the 93rd anniversary of Philippine independence, a major eruption occurred. The next day was Punongbayan’s 54th birthday.

Two days later, Pinatubo blew its top, shooting a column of smoke and dust up to 14 kilometers into the sky and showering the surrounding areas with gas, ash and rocks.

For days, the volcano vomited lava, sending streams of burning molten rock down its slopes that destroyed vegetation on the mountain and the plains below.

Predictable

Stauro remembered his father describing Pinatubo as a closed-system volcano.

The eruption of such a volcano has many stages, Stauro explained, so the big one can be predicted.

Punongbayan, who earned his doctorate degree in geology at the University of Colorado in 1972, followed Pinatubo’s violent phases, accurately predicting that a big bang was coming, enabling the national and local governments to clear the surrounding areas of inhabitants and prepare a response to certain widespread disaster.

“He saved thousands of lives,” he said. “He was not afraid to ask for help, for cooperation and collaboration. I am proud of him for what he accomplished during the eruption.”

The success of his father’s Pinatubo predictions “solidified his integrity as a scientist,” Stauro said.

Air crash

Punongbayan was pushing his disaster-preparedness project when he perished in an air crash on April 28, 2006.

Stauro recalled that he received a text message that morning inquiring about his father’s whereabouts.

“[The caller] said there was an accident that included the group from the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC),” he said.

Punongbayan was a member of the PNRC board of governors.

“During lunch break, I received a text from [a journalist asking] if my daddy was on the helicopter,” Stauro said. “Usually, Dad flew out on survey trips.”

Confirmation came that afternoon. His father and eight others were on the Philippine Air Force helicopter that crashed in Gabaldon town in Nueva Ecija. There were no survivors.

“They were on a mission to assess the place as part of the disaster-preparedness operations program of the government,” Stauro said. “They were also looking for a place to resettle people displaced by floods and landslides in Quezon.”

Selfless

Punongbayan lived to help prevent disasters. He died while trying to help victims of disasters.

“He was selfless and indefatigable,” Stauro said. “I’d see him early in the morning turning the computer on to do something. Or lying on the sofa thinking of what else he could do for the country, for the people.”

The Phivolcs exhibit included stories about Punongbayan and his work, a tribute to the scientist who dealt with and admired, if not loved, destructive terrestrial forces. Rogelio Constantino Medina