We have not heard of the town in the coming years, except that commerce, no matter how excruciatingly slow the grind is, has gone back to town. Signs of life have once again visited the desolate place. The erstwhile town center at the right side of the church has now moved to the left. But clearly, the dust of drying lahar still powders the traveler as he drives through makeshift roads, red cars becoming brown in what can easily pass for a slalom course.
Baculud, a Pampango word which means high and level ground, was also the name given to this town due to its well-established and prosperous sitio even before the Spaniards came. It was founded in 1576 by Don Guillermo Manabat, a wealthy landlord from the place.
When the Spaniards arrived under the leadership of Ferdinand Blumentritt, Baculud was changed to Bacolor to conform to the Spanish language. In 1754, it was made the capital of Pampanga and eight years later the seat of the Spanish Government, following the retreat of Simon de Anda when Manila fell into the English invaders. The King of Spain issued a decree naming the town Villa de Bacolor, one of the only three villas in the Philippines, and granted it a special coat of arms, Pluribus Unum, Non-plus Ultra, meaning "one out of the many."
In 1756, the Augustinian friars built the church of Bacolor, with San Guillermo, the Duke of Aquitania, appointed as its titular patron saint. It stood on the former site of the Don Guillermo Manabat’s residence. As one of the oldest and largest in Pampanga, it has kept alive traditions and practices in the Catholic faith, some of which remain among the most elegant and colorful in the country.
Rev. Fr. Nestor G. Tayag, Jr., a cabalen himself, was assigned to the San Guillermo Parish Church on the very day of his 30th birthday on June 24, 1995, some four years after the first volcanic eruption wrought immense havoc to Bacolor, and not at all sparing its very landmark, the church. The youthful priest, from day one of his assignment, bubbled with inspired energy to bring back to the town the glory and raison d’être of its being hailed as the Athens of Pampanga. Historical records show that Bacolor was once Pampanga’s social and political center, as well as the cultural center of Pampango zarzuelas, dramas and novelas.
The great lahar cataclysm on September 3, 1995 almost obliterated the glory of this town. Barely two months old in his new parish assignment, Fr. Tayag was almost relieved of the post, since the tons of lahar buried inside the church considerably threatened the structure’s very foundation. But one of tenacious spirit and not wont to easily give up, Fr. Tayag opted to remain in Bacolor, even if there were only a handful of parishioners who also decided to stay put.
"The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo," says Fr. Tayag in hindsight, "is indeed a mystery. It revealed mysterious truths to the people of Bacolor who encountered and experienced its devastating effects. Though it unveiled to them the reality of pain and sorrow, still, the community pursued with faith and determination their journey to rehabilitate and start anew. God made use of the half-buried San Guillermo church for the people of Bacolor to nourish their hope and faith as they struggle to live amidst the suffering brought by Mt. Pinatubo."
Celebrating the holy sacraments of mass in a makeshift tent, with the half-buried facade as the altar, Fr. Tayag continued resolutely with the religious practices known by the Bacolor folks since birth. Hence, on the third Sunday of November 1995, the feast for La Virgen Naval was observed. The devotion to the Blessed Virgin of the Holy Rosary dates back to 1786 when the very first Fiesta La Naval was celebrated in Bacolor.
Encouraged by the huge turnout of people who flocked back to Bacolor to take part in the La Naval fiesta, Fr. Tayag saw to it that the Christmas celebrations in the makeshift tent would also have to come to pass. This was followed by the observance of two more revered traditions, the feast day of San Guillermo on February 10 and the weeklong commemoration of Lent in April the following year.
The Pinatubo phenomenon understandably gained international prominence for the country due mainly to the thousands of lives devastated in the aftermath of the eruption and the volume of pyroclastic materials emitted by a volcano dormant for centuries. It had left an indelible searing picture of human hopelessness in an eerie and barren scape of lahar deposits, leaving whole rooftops of what once were robust households as living reminders of how harsh nature could unleash her wrath.
Luckily in 1996, a foreign film group was attracted to the site and asked permission to shoot a movie. The crew was able to convert the transept area of the buried church into a working area–mess hall, production office, etc. Although the crew stayed only for less than a week, the improvements they made in the site greatly inspired the people to broaden the task. Unwittingly, it fueled the feverish desire of the faithful to rehabilitate the church.
Under the leadership of Fr. Tayag, the work inched backward from the transept area to the nave area. Relying mainly on their brawn and muscles, the people mixed the soggy and stubborn lahar with truckloads of sand, all from benevolent donation of the townspeople, as well as those Bacoloreans who were in settlement areas. Weeks later, the lahar floor of the church hardened, and the makeshift tent outside had to be dismantled, a signal for one and all that the interior of the San Guillermo Parish Church was once again fit for religious use.
The quietness by which Fr. Tayag and his community of believers proceeded in the daunting task of rehabilitating the church clearly manifested their steadfast belief that much could be accomplished sans the fanfare and mileage that could easily be generated by such an undertaking in the press. What counted most was the sincere and authentic desire of the people to make things happen.
For more than three months in 1997, the parishioners concentrated on salvaging what could still be saved from the rubble. The consensus was to raise from the earth the three retablos which had been buried by lahar, and which only the upper level were unscathed by the volcanic fury. First to be dug up was the leftside altarpiece, a highly intricate wooden retablo. Plucking it out from the rubble piece by piece, they numbered each one, piece, cleaned them individually, and reassembled them with utmost care. Here were inexperienced people at art conservation, yet they gallantly rose to the occasion, working so methodically and so wonderfully, no matter that they were doing the chore from sheer gut feel, maybe, if not native intuition.
Soon, the retablo was fully reconstructed, so dainty and delicate that Fr. Tayag opted to have it brought to the Archdiocese in San Fernando for safekeeping in the meantime that restoration work was still in full swing in Bacolor.
Fr. Tayag remembered how one columnist of another paper was so inconsiderate about an account of the story. The writer saw the seemingly uncared for retablo buried on the church floor and without even checking facts nor talking to the priest or to anyone went on to inaccurately conclude that the parish priest was not doing anything but was rather contributing to the further decay of the retablo. The same writer blamed the entire parish for the unpardonable negligence, not knowing that all efforts were then being exerted by the parishioners to save the retablo.
Propped up by the vision of seeing Bacolor rise from the Pinatubo ashes, the incident never dampened the resolve of Fr. Tayag and the Bacoloreans. What mattered at that time in their collective heart, body and soul was the Herculean task to conserve the church at all cause and cost.