Miraculous events welcoming the Mt. Pinatubo Hidden Temple Shrine

(Part IV of a series on The Ecumenical Trinity of Shrines)

The Mt. Pinatubo Hidden Temple Shrine Foundation was set up in July 1992 to develop the mystically selected forest shrine park on the hilltop of Palan, San Marcelino, to become an ecumenical “spiritual rehabilitation center”, with a farm and community integrated around it. Making up the Foundation Board today are SBMA Chairman Fil Salonga as Foundation president, while I am the chairman, with Edgardo de Leon as corporate secretary, Felicito Payumo as treasurer (Mr. Payumo has been appointed BCDA Chairman this week). Rosemarie Arenas chairs the ways and means committee. Lovely Romulo, Fortune Ledesma and Atty. Tony Salva are members.

Images of the sorrowing Lord

It was April, during the Holy Week of 1992, a year after Mt. Pinatubo erupted, while we were giving a final check to the Mt. Pinatubo Temple Shrine for the Easter Sunday Thanksgiving and Welcome ceremonies in Palan, San Marcelino, when two baby tornadoes (ipo-ipo) welcomed us. We saw them dance near two foothills of Mt. Pinatubo which miraculously registered the image of the sorrowing and bloody face of Our Lord; one directly faced us, the other showed His handsome profile, as He knelt down in prayer at the Garden of Gethsemane. Riding with us in the van was Kit Legaspi, the engineer assigned by Mayor Gordon to design and put together the shrine. He tried to make out the imprint of Jesus’ face but he could not. Each ipo-ipo twirled and aligned itself across Jesus’ facial impressions to help Kit see them. In a second, both “twisters” merged and formed a huge desert tornado.

Easter Sunday 1992 - 10 busloads of pilgrims from Manila and Zambales crowded in this remote settlement of Palan, which nestles against eight foothills of the Zambales mountain range, to offer Thanksgiving to Our Lord and Blessed Mother for gifting the country the Mt. Pinatubo “Hidden Temple Shrine”, especially during these national crises, which damaged Pampanga, Tarlac, and Zambales.

The two monuments stand on a 60-foot high hill, which Congresswoman Katherine H. Gordon of the third district of Zambales chose as most fitting for the holy monuments. She also helped commission psychic-artist, Pempe Floriano to sculpt. Mrs. Gordon was preparing for her seventh back surgery at the Makati Medical Center, when she recalled the 60-foot hill, the lowest among the eight others, so she could climb it more easily after her hospitalization. It faces Mt. Pinatubo, 13 miles away. Meantime, a visionary confirmed it as the right site.

Little did she know then that this is the very hill where many years before the eruption, the Blessed Mother would stand, blessing the rice farmers and residents who lived around it. This was told to me by the young farmers’ wives, who would frequently dream of Mary.

The miracles

The miracles started during the construction of the Mt. Pinatubo Hidden Temple Shrine. The Blessed Mother gave a message to Punay Kabayao-Fernandez, mystic-artist that she wanted her eyes to be closed in prayer, rather than widely opened. Where the statue was completed, Mrs. Fernandez received “inner instructions’ to add a chalice with a Star of David emblem in the left hand, and a purple candle in the right hand.

Then a “baby tornado” was observed to appear on the site when the statue of Our Lady was hoisted up on the hill by a 34-ton crane from Subic Naval Base. The tornado danced from the head to the toe of Our Lady, then swayed left and right. It descended the 101 steps down the hill, as if welcoming the Blessed Mother to the area. Third, the spring water flowing behind the shrine has become miraculous. The sickness and death among the settlers especially among the children have stopped. Fourth, no lahar flowed within the Mt Pinatubo area in spite of the heavy rain, which consistently fell the whole day.

On the same night of the installation, the hill shrine was illumined by a celestial light and six housewives observed that the Blessed Mother became alive and her gown turned silver as she waved her hand in blessing. The 80 to 90-year-old evacuees who go up to pray every afternoon have all been relieved of their arthritis, asthma and pneumonia.

The passage of the SBMA bill

The most incredible miracle has been the passage of the Subic Free Port Authority Bill by both the Senate and Congress which refused to pass it between December and January. The Gordons and thousands of base workers have been praying to Our Blessed Mother of Mt. Pinatubo for this. Many were surprised at the speed of the decision especially since there were 12 anti-bases senators in the Senate. The base workers continued to march to Malacañang since the President refused to give the final signature. Half a miracle occurred when he signed the bill but withheld permission to allow Mayor Richard Gordon to chairman it, although the law specified so. The miracle was finally completed last week of March 1992, when Mayor Gordon was given the rightful authority to make the Subic Free Port revive Olongapo. It is a national symbol that Filipinos will always survive.

In March 1992, a month before Our Lord joined His Mother at the Shrine, other unique manifestations and messages were given. Our Lord helped rush the completion of His figure. While the face would have taken a whole week to do, the sculptor found that he was able to finish the face in an hour – a dimple even appeared on the left cheek. This was witnessed by Mr. Soliven and me. Jesus appeared looking like His Mother. Yet His manly looks were still apparent.

Both statues have been “ensouled” from the time the steel rods were coiled and wired as their basic skeletons. Several photographs taken of them also manifest bright lights around them even in the darkness of the night.

‘Salubong’, the Easter Sunday meeting of Mother Mary and her son Jesus

One of our school artists with a clairvoyant gift, saw and drew a series of illustrations of six special angels of the high order, accompanying the 10-wheeler truck which brought Our Lord to the Palan Shrine. As the payloader pulled up the truck over the 60-foot high hill, three angels hovered on each side of the truck. When the 34-ton crane for rough terrain from the Subic Naval Base PWC hoisted up the statue all wrapped in thick sponge, the angels surrounded Him until He was gently laid on the cement pedestal behind Our Praying Blessed Mother.

The heavenly welcome

All the sponge wraps were removed revealing Jesus in full golden splendor, the meter tall gold cross held high with His left hand.

Meantime, the American engineer Hal Driver supervised 20 other men including welders to also help set up Jesus on the two-meter high stand. Five pickup trucks were in attendance.

I invited the evacuees’ children including the Aetas to kneel down to worship Our Lord. His Mother Mary is not to be worshipped, she says, for she is a mortal being, not God. We, however, may revere her. She is sad for Filipinos tend to make a cult around her, that others think Catholics worship her like God. In the altars of many homes, she should be placed together with Our Lord and not by herself. I also explained that Jesus is our Light. The cross symbolizes His redeeming the world from the darkness of problems and sin; thus His title: Our Lord of Love and Redemption. At this moment, our spiritually gifted artist observed the figure of Our Lord Himself, looking exactly like the statue, towering over His cement replica, blessing us with His cross.

Right after, the sound of trumpets, flutes, harps and drums was heard by the illustrator coming from above. She saw different kinds of angels carrying these instruments, playing jubilant music. Mother and Son are finally together.

(Next week: Last of the series, Miracles of the Spring Water)