Mayon Volcano as Entertainer of the Year

MANILA, Philippines - If you are not fazed by unpredictable low pressure areas turning into instant typhoons and not bothered by economic downturn, this is a good time as any to visit Albay where the volcanologists are constantly keeping vigil on Mayon Volcano’s uncertain moods.

If at this time of the year Mayon is the superstar, Albay and other provinces of Bicol are really where most legendary movie stars of the past and the present come from.

Elizabeth Oropesa is from Guinobatan, Albay and Boots Anson Roa’s father, Oscar Moreno, is from Camalig, Albay; Celia Rodriguez and Amalia Fuentes I think are also from Albay; the great Nora Aunor, Victor Wood, Imelda Papin and Zaldy Zhornack are just from the nearby province of Camarines Sur in Iriga City; Eddie Garcia is from Casiguran, Sorsogon just south of Albay. The list could be endless.

I was in Albay when Erap shot Diligin Mo Ng Hamog Ang Tigang Na Lupa with Diego Cagahastian I think as the scriptwriter.

I saw the film version of My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn at the Rex Theater in Legazpi City in 1964 and later in the mid-’70s, Lino Brocka’s Maynila Sa Kuko ng Liwanag at the Albay Theater. I didn’t know Brocka had Bicolano roots in Sorsogon although he grew up in San Jose, Nueva Ecija.

Before I had set foot in Albay, my only view of Mayon was in the late afternoon when the weather was clear and you could see the volcano’s perfect outline on my way home from Catanduanes National High School.

In the mid-’70s in Legazpi City, I used to live in a house by the sea (rental: P200 a month!) with a breath-taking view of Mayon Volcano. On an early morning walk by the beach, I would see Mayon in all her serene splendor and I thought that I could live here forever. My friend, the late Philip Molina and I used to climb Linghion Hill near the Legazpi Airport just to have a perfect view of Mayon. It was the sight of Mayon that made me stay in Albay for almost seven years and the mountain was witness to some evolutions in one’s life. Alone and single then, my life evolved around the mountain and the sea — and the government job I landed to when Graphic Magazine was shut down by martial law.

The closest that I could reach the tip of Mayon volcano was in 1971 (a year before martial law) when Ester Dipasupil and some media persons went as far beyond the Mayon Resthouse. Between the Mayon Resthouse and the crater, the view midway to the volcano crater was exhilarating. But I guess my physique at the time was made for writing and proofreading and not for mountain climbing. And so just a thousand feet or so from the crater, I gave up and hastened back to the Mayon Resthouse.

My Mayon fantasy went as far as visualizing a wedding on an ancient church called Cagsawa which the volcano buried in its 1814 eruption (this wedding fantasy happened in real life with pianist Glenn Gould playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations in the background).

An Albay chronicler noted that wedding in his history book thus: “1974 (December 14). For the first time in 160 years, a Catholic wedding was solemnized in the Cagsawa Ruins at 4 p.m. Pablo A. Tariman of Baras, Catanduanes and a bride (from Daraga, Albay) were joined in a marriage by the Daraga assistant curate Fr. Eliakim Suela, OFM.”

Now if I made a coup by getting married in Cagsawa Ruins, somebody beat me to celebrating birthday right there on the crater of Mayon Volcano. One such mountain buff was a Swiss mountaineer named Jan Trangott who observed his 46th birthday right on the mouth of Mayon Volcano. “This is one birthday I will never forget,” Jan said as he clinked glasses with his four companions. This mountaineer climbed on an early morning and reached the peak as the early morning sun broke through the clouds.

To date, I still envy Monsieur Trangott for beating to my ultimate Mayon Fantasy, something I don’t feel for Leo Oracion when he scaled Mt. Everest. At that time, mountaineers didn’t have elaborate TV coverage and corporate sponsorships and they climbed for only one reason, “Because it is there.”

In 1963, former Education Secretary Alfredo Roces (I saw him recently greeting Mrs. Nakpil during the Manila Pen exhibit of Marivic Rufino) was able to scale Mayon and in the ‘70s, a mountain guide named Ricardo Dy had climbed Mayon more than 23 times. Said a Japanese mountain climber I met in the ‘70s: “Except for the absence of snow, Mayon measures up well to anything Fujiyama, Annapurna, the Alps, the Himalayas and other formidable mountains can offer and for so much less.”

In the 1978 Mayon eruption, I joined a group of Manila-based media men who got to the nearest barrio where one could get a vantage (but dangerous) view of the lava flow.

At the time, I thought Mayon was performer of the year and stealing the show from Nora Aunor who — like Mayon at the time — was a Bicol favorite.

When I decided to join a group going to the nearest Albay barrio where a lava channel was sure to attract boiling lava, I thought that was the ultimate fantasy and with the lure of danger for added drama. At the time, the late Willie Vicoy was with UPI, Sol Vanzi was with the American Broadcasting Corporation and Louie Perez was and still is, with Manila Bulletin. I was a correspondent for Times Journal where my boss was Gani Yambot (now the PDI publisher).

I don’t recall Sol making it to barrio Sua in Camalig town. But the group advanced to as far as Sitio Tinobran which was only three kilometers away from the nearest lava channel. Vicoy and Perez had enough provisions (canned goods, extra clothing, etc.). My provision consisted of a flashlight, a tape recorder, a cassette of Buencamino’s Mayon Fantasy as played by Mary Ann Armovit (at the time, I have yet to hear Licad’s definitive Mayon Fantasy), a copy of Mishima’s Spring Snow and a blank cassette.

When we arrived, the volcano’s acting was described by volcanologist as “effusive” and not much action and excitement happened. When darkness engulfed us, Mayon’s mood turned to malevolent and that was when I thought we could get buried by lava flow in the dead of night. Only three kilometers from the towering inferno that was the crater of the volcano, I came face to face with real fear. At first, we were overwhelmed. Then we heard the sound of foghorn akin to some pressure coming from a steamship. I thought for a while that the volcano’s acting could only be limited to a growl. It turned out that Mayon also hissed and it sounded like someone was being sucked violently from the bowels of the earth. Then we heard the mountain growl for real. The effect was eerie. I told someone I’d like to go back to Camalig town and head back to Legazpi beach house. I just thought that I didn’t want to perish in a volcano coverage and leave a then two-year-old daughter behind. The late Vicoy was unfazed by the The Big Growl. When we heard it, he turned to the mountain and shouted, “Go ahead. Erupt. Show Your power!” As if challenged, the volcano rumbled anew and I felt my hair stand on end. Vicoy asked me to peep through his powerful camera astride on a tripod. For the first time, what looked like pebbles coming from the crater were actually boulders the size of a residential house. I monitored one eruption in particular and realized that the rumblings didn’t originate from the crater but from the impact of the explosion of huge boulders on the slope. A few hours after the fiery show of Mayon’s might, I felt I needed something to divert my fear. I turned to my tape recorder and played Clementi’s Sonatina Op. 36, No. 1 which I recorded from a local station the night before. In the morning, we saw real, flaming lava scalding the vegetation just a kilometer and a half away from us. Someone invited the group to go where the lava actually flowed and I thought that was going too far. But then I took a swig of Pedro Domecq brought by Perez and told the group, “Why not?” And so we advanced and just a kilometer away, we saw how the green vegetation turned to gray with the onset of the boiling mud. Resting on a big boulder ejected by previous eruption, I suddenly replayed Clementi’s Sonata as played by Philipp Entremont. Face to face with the lava and hearing music, Perez said the scene reminded him of the film Soylent Green where dying people were treated with a view of a patch of green and profusion of flowers with a Beethoven symphony in the background. “I am just re-enacting that scene,” I told Perez, a way of telling him that we had better leave the place or else perish and end up as mummified lava figurines. Then we heard a death-like thud from the lava reservoir and everybody was jolted. I turned to Pedro Domecq and played Clementi in full volume. Still want to go nearer? I asked the late Vicoy. Then the fumes started coming our way. This time, no amount of Pedro Domecq could make us advance. We retreated back to Camalig town. I realized I never had the chance to play Buencamino’s Mayon Fantasy. The volcano rumblings recorded in my tape recorded were far more real and exciting.

I was back in Albay in recent times in the company of Cesar Montano, Norma Japitana, Behn Cervantes and Ginger Conejero who covered a livelihood program for masons undertaken by Holcim.

Conejero’s granduncle, Iking Conejero, is from Ligao, Albay where one of my favorite writers, Kerima Polotan came from.

On our last day in Legazpi City, I figured it was time to re-live past and recent Mayon Fantasies. Norma and I relived how in 1977 the late songstress Didith Reyes was bitten by a jelly fish during our picnic in Sto. Domingo, Albay(where Legacy icon Celso de los Angeles is mayor and had a great house by the sea) and I had to pee on her legs to neutralize its poisonous sting.

I told Ginger her granduncle should figure in a remake of a film called Scent of a Woman because he could smell and visualize a woman from a distance. Between Josh Groban numbers rendered by long-time Albay friend Lando Esquela in a nearby karaoke bar (where Behn upstaged me by doing New York, New York complete with dance sequence), I recounted to Cesar how my idyllic life was in Albay in the ‘70s.

As Mayon now threatens to stage a major eruption, I think of ordinary people and the celebrities from the volcano country whose public and private lives have also seen major and minor eruptions in another level.

Then and now, Mayon Volcano remains the country’s natural entertainer of the year.