Isubli ing makislap nang leguan ning balen Bakulud

Disclaimer:  Most of the events cited here, apart from being personal knowledge, were mostly from my readings during my graduate program in Public Management, which I never finished, from 2004 to 2015.  No supplemental honest-to-goodness research work was undertaken to enrich the factual bases of this articles.  All the photos are mine,  except for one that I grabbed from my brother's FB account.

Our illegally quarried 2.6-hectare farmland.

Will the wanton quarrying contribute any to the comprehensive rehabilitation of my  hometown, Bacolor, from the crippling devastation it suffered from two intertwined natural hazards, i.e., the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 and the resultant lahar flows in the succeeding five years?

Will Bacolor be like the immortal bird Phoenix that will acquire new life by rising from its ashes?

Before we proceed, let's get to know my hometown first.

Bacolor prides an illustrious past.  From 1698 to 1904, it was the capital of Pampanga.  In addition, it became the capital of the Philippines, albeit briefly, from 6 October 1762 to 30 May 1764.  This was when the British colonial forces occupied Manila and the nearby port of Cavite during the Seven Years' War.  Spain initially opted to be neutral but subsequently sided with France as it became apparent that the successive British victories will endanger its lucrative colonial exploits if these are unchallenged.

The Bacolor LGU claims this is farmland scrapping;

this obviously is quarrying and it was done without

our permission.  That's my brother in the middle

showing the extent of quarrying.

Spanish Governor General Simon de Anda was forced to flee Manila to avoid capture by the British.  And where else would he seek refuge other than the province that sustained them and their occupation of Manila and provided the wherewithal, including soldiers--who have not heard of the Voluntarios de Macabebe, the forerunner of the Macabebe Scouts?--in subjugating and controlling not just the rest of Luzon but its other overseas exploitative ventures, too.  During this nearly two-year interregnum,  de Anda held court at the Pampanga Casa Real which is where the Bacolor Elementary School now stands.  It was here where de Anda planned and directed operations to retake Manila and, at the same time, oversaw the administration of the rest of the Philippine islands.

The confluence of these events, coupled with the ethnicity, industry, and resiliency of the "taga pampang", made the Capampangan race dominant in our nation's evolving history.  Bacolor was unquestionably politically, economically, and socially pivotal in this evolution.  It was the primus inter pares among the Capampangan towns, which included municipalities that are now geopolitically parts of Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, and Bataan.

Succession of double whammies

But, an abrupt fortune shift happened at the dawning of the 20th century.  San Fernando was declared as the new provincial capital by the American colonizers in 1904 and the economic and political development gravitated away from Bacolor.  With this declaration, Bacolor was by-passed by the Philippine National Railway.  A third town, Mexico, also vied for the privilege but San Fernando was the compromise to break the impasse.  Its stature as the center of Capampangan literature and the moniker "Athens of Pampanga" was all that was left for this once illustrious town.

This was the first significant double whammy that the town would suffer.  Its replacement as the provincial capital and being by-passed by the national railway system inhibited it from grabbing a lion's share of the socio-political and economic windfall that the American imperialist dispensation would usher in the country.  A missed opportunity that could have cemented its prominence and importance, especially in Central Luzon, that the City of San Fernando now enjoys.

If it is any consolation, our farmland was partially
leveled after my negotiation with the municipal
quarry regulator/focal person.
.

This succession of human-induced hazard events robbed Bacolor of its "makislap nang leguan".

Although figuratively at the backseat, it was nonetheless able to take advantage of whatever profits and gains that trickled down from San Fernando.  While remaining agrarian economically and socially, it still fared better than the other municipalities.  More than anything, its sterling human capital saved the day for Bacolor.

In spite of the town's diminished political, social, and economic clout, Ceferino S. Joven, a prominent Bacolor politician, was chosen as the first civil governor of Pampanga at the outset of the American rule.  The first Capampangan senator, Dr. Francisco T. Liongson, also hailed from the Bacolor.  He was also the third provincial governor.  The town was definitely not without capable leaders.

There's also Honorio T. Ventura, the benefactor of Diosdado Macapagal and other equally bright and promising "poor boys" of Pampanga. He, too, served as provincial governor and was later appointed Secretary of Interior.  All this after he and his family rose from the vicious maltreatment from the Spanish colonial dispensation because of their role in the publication of Jose Rizal's El Filibusterismo and their Masonic link.  During his incumbency, President Diosdado Macapagal ordered the renaming of Pampanga School of Arts and Trades to Don Honorio Ventura Memorial School of Arts and Trades in 1964 and was converted to a state university during the presidency of his daughter in 2009.

What crops will our farmland can sustain
after this rapacious and indiscriminate
quarrying.  It was for many years planted
with sugarcane by a sugar planter who
rented it from my father.

It is now a full-blown and multi-faceted state university with campuses throughout the province.  After minor changes in its name, it is now known as Don Honorio Ventura State University.  But for how long, in the light of House Bill No. 9989 filed by Dong Gonzales that would change its name to Pampanga State University?  The bill has already passed first reading. (Hopefully, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in spite of her smaller stature in the Lower House, will do something to counteract the proposed bill.)

Another standout is Pablo Angeles y David.  Before becoming provincial governor and senator, he was the youngest person, at 20 years old, to hurdle the bar exam by placing third.  He was made to wait for a year before he was allowed to take his oath of law (Wikipedia).  He's famous for his campaign against the Hukbong Magpapalaya ng Bayan (HMB), a communist-controlled guerilla force, who dared to cross sword with him during his tenure as the provincial governor.

Even among the enablers of the dreaded Marcos Dictatorship, a Bacolor legal luminary became an indispensable cog in the perpetuation of this aberration in our long-held democratic tradition.  Many cabalens are still awed at Estelito P. Mendoza for concurrently holding three high-level government posts--Minister of Justice, Solicitor General, and Pampanga Governor--apart from several high corporate positions.  Post-EDSA, he gained infamy as the defender of allegedly the most corrupt politicians accused of plundering the national coffers.

This A-list that enjoyed his cunning and astute lawyering services are the Marcoses, GMA, Erap and Jingoy, Enrile, Bong Revilla, etc.  Many wait in bated breath how he would handle the case of Sara Duterte on the mind-boggling Php125-million confidential fund she received from Bongbong Marcos and expended in just 11 days.  Mishandling this case will surely boomerang on one of, if not, his most valued clients, BBM.

Another consolation arranged by the municipal

quarry regulator/focal person; seedlings of fruit-

bearing trees from the Municipal Nursery.

These high caliber leaders are sorely missed  when Bacolor confronted its probably most formidable double whammy ever.

On 15 June 1991, Mount Pinatubo reawakened from its nearly half-a-millennium deep slumber.  This eruption was so humongous that it allegedly altered the global climate pattern and was considered as  the second biggest eruption of the century.  However, it was the subsequent cascading of the smoldering lahar that mired the town in unspeakable wretchedness. Bacolor, of all the affected towns in Central  Luzon, bear most of the brunt from the twin hazards.  And, it has yet to completely free itself from their effects.

These hazard events instigated a five-year diaspora when residents fearing for their lives against the rampaging scorching pyroclastic flows left and took refuge in safer havens.  The lack of assurance from and the failure of the government to provide humane support for their day-to-day survival further fueled this dispersion.  The pillage of their remaining prized possessions was not reason enough for them to stay.  Even long after a semblance of normalcy has returned, a still significant number of residents has yet to come back.

Absence of the sterling human capital

Given the magnitude of the twin hazards and the reactive nature of disaster management at that time, the town has little, if not completely lacks, pre-disaster plans where its recovery and rehabilitation could take off.  While this is understandable because the world has yet to scientifically collate, analyze, and learn from both the natural and human-induced hazards and disasters that caused unspeakable destruction and miseries and wasted huge resources on unscientific and knee-jerk post-disaster interventions, brilliant and innovative town officials could have thought of adaptive measures to soften the impact of the disasters.

(I can't help but be reminded of the late Porac Mayor Roy David's improvised moveable bridge atop an old but sturdy six-by-six sugarcane cargo truck to span the collapsed portion of the Mancatian Bridge over the Pasig Potrero River that facilitated the transfer of residents from one end to the other end and spared them the risk of walking directly on the riverbed below.  This accorded Porac residents unhampered travel to and from Angeles City when no cascading lahar is monitored to enable them to ply their trades for their daily subsistence).  

Old school disaster management practically starts with response that seamlessly segues to recovery and rehabilitation phase.  Who can forget the cinematic rescues of Lito Lapid and relief operations of Inday Badiday.  The first catapulted the former, and indirectly his son Mark, to the governorship of Pampanga trouncing the well-respected and very capable Bren Z. Guiao, in the process.  

These response actions, of course, did not produce the foundations on which the towns and their communities could hinge their sustainable recovery and rehabilitation initiatives.

This is supposedly where the sterling human capital and leadership that Bacolor once possessed should have come in.  But, it was the non-state actors, like the various Save movements, that stepped in to fill up this leadership vacuum.  These groups did manage to lobby for the erection of a dike from then President Fidel V. Ramos, but this primarily saved San Fernando and the rest of Pampanga.  The FVR Mega Dike facilitated the containment  and confinement of the fiery volcanic debris in lahar-ravaged barangays of Bacolor.  While this proved beneficial for the province and other towns, it was detrimental to Bacolor.  Moreso, as there was no state assurance on what to do with Bacolor after the disaster.

This, unquestionably, was the clearest manifestation of the town's weak leadership; the failure to gain concessions after Bacolor was practically made the lahar catchment basin.  Apparently, this kind of leadership has since been the norm and, sadly, the end is nowhere near.

With no response to my written rehabilitation 

assistance from the Governor's Office for its witting 

or unwitting negligence and oversight, I spent part

of my maintenance medicine money to get chicken manure

from a nearby poultry farm arranged by well-meaning

municipal agriculture office personnel.

A very promising development appeared in 2008 when the Republic Act No. 9506, otherwise known by its short title as "Bacolor Rehabilitation Council Act" was signed into law on September 28.  Although it should have been enacted much earlier, this was seen as an all-important impetus for the town's rehabilitation as this calls for the formation of a multi-agency rehabilitation council principally to accomplish two (2) objectives: 1) draft a comprehensive rehabilitation plan for submission to the President for approval six (6) months after the effectivity of the Act; and 2)  meet regularly to evaluate the progress of the implementation of the rehabilitation plan.

It also clearly identified the sources of funds for its implementation.  For the operation of the BRC, the necessary amount will be charged against the funds of the Municipality while the funds needed for the execution of the rehabilitation plan shall be included in the budgets of the implementing agencies in the  2009 General Appropriations Act (GAA). 

There are indications, though, that this Act was never implemented.

Jun Surla in his special report, "Facts or Fiction: Rebuilding 'Athens'", noted that "nothing really much has happened to resurrect Bacolor back to its old glory"  eight (8) years after the Act was passed into law. Incumbent Mayor Eduardo Datu confirmed this observation when he said during his interview that Bacolor is largely "vacant lands, mostly privately owned, (that) looked like mini-jungles of mixed tall grass and wild plants."  And, he blamed this "vast lands' unsightly idleness to lack of people" (Punto Central Luzon, 12 January 2021).

A typical trapo, Datu practically blamed everyone except himself and his incumbent municipal colleagues and their predecessors who miserably failed to come out with and offered attractive alternatives for town residents to return and take part in bringing back the old glory that was Bacolor--ibalik ing makislap nang leguan ning balen Bakulud--the slogan successfully used by the mayor when he was the vice mayor.

The rehabilitation of the town, I believe, could have been a breeze.  Aside from the Bacolor Rehabilitation Council Act, the Office of the President, if my memory is still good, earmarked Php350-million for the implementation of 10 initially identified projects even before the rehabilitation plan was formulated.  According to Joey Pavia (Punto Central Luzon, 3 April 2009), seven of these projects were funded and implemented; these were mostly road and dike repairs, and hospital and school constructions. 

However, one may ask, did these projects strategically contribute to the rehabilitation of the town?

Looking back, a cynical NGO worker-friend lamented that these projects lined the pockets of local politicians more than offered additional incentives for the people to return.  He added that these could only serve, at the most, some tactical needs but could not contribute to the long-term development or strategic objectives of a non-existent plan.  He further opined that out-of-the-box programs, projects, and activities are needed to attract the return of the people.  To prove his point, he asked if the "first class edifices at the municipal hall complex"  or well-paved roads could bring food on their tables or money in their pockets, especially the barrio folks who previously depended on agriculture for their subsistence.

The Php1.5-billion special rehabilitation fund, he said, could have gone a long way in pursuing out-of-the-box, and not "imeldific", programs, projects, and activities that will ensure that there will be food on the tables and money in the pockets  of the people.  But  what happened to this very important resource?

What did Buddy Dungca and his municipal council do to ensure that this special fund shall be included in the 2009 national budget (GAA)?  The same question could also be directed to Dong Gonzales, as the Third District representative and bill sponsor?

Moreover, if Bacolor has the likes of our past celebrated leaders, will this monumental failure to secure the Php1.5-billion special fund still happen?  Most likely not.

Granting that the NEDA Regional Director was remiss in his role as the BRC Chair and failed to convene the council, a capable and gung-ho municipal mayor, as Co-Chair, could have convened and initiated the council meetings until the plan is drafted and submitted to the President for approval.  Or, the municipal council could have forced the mayor to do so, if he, too, was remiss.  They should have known that this plan is the much needed signal that the implementing agencies are waiting to include in their budgets the funds for the implementation of the programs, projects, and activities needed to rehabilitate Bacolor.

Another question to ask at this juncture is, is the current crop of officials different from those that defaulted in 2009?

I think, the majority is carried over or are the same municipal executives and legislators of the 2009 administration.  Datu, who was then the vice mayor, is now the incumbent mayor.  The son of Dungca, who tried to succeed his father as an inexperienced 21-year old but lost, is now the vice mayor and the shoo-in mayor if Datu opted not to or can no longer run.  

Bacolor will doubly have a hard time to recover its old glory with these current officials as they have figuratively blown away the ashes from which the town can acquire new life, like the Phoenix.  The unabated quarrying operations, which they pass of as farm scrapping, is practically depriving Bacolor an important newly acquired physical attribute made possible by the 20-meter high, more or less, lahar deposition; making it 37 meters above sea level.  While flood plain-towns are wallowing in floods for days, Bacolor is not.  Bakulud is now literally a "high ground" anew after the eruption.

As long as these officials have not moved past their lower-level basic needs that Abraham Maslow described in his classic "A Theory of Human Motivation", the return-to-old glory aspiration of well-meaning old timers of Bacolor will be as elusive as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  If they continue to look up to their role model provincial patron-masters, the end of their greed for wealth and power appears insatiable.  

The absence of environmental impact assessment and extensive community consultation, a must under the Local Government Code of 1991 (R.A. No. 7160), did not deter quarrying in Bacolor and other parts of the province.  Bacolor residents, most especially, should realize that quarries are temporary, but their environmental impacts and losses can never be reversed, even after they are inevitably abandoned.  Quarrying must stop before its "high ground" comparative advantage over flood-plain towns is lost and will no longer be a strength in pursuing and implementing a truly comprehensive rehabilitation plan.  

Predicated to this is the necessity that these incumbent town officials and their provincial patron-masters are not given new mandates to continue with their misgovernance, in general, and the rape and exploitation of the local environment and natural resources, in particular.  New leaders with sterling qualifications exhibited by the likes of Joven, Liongson, Ventura, Angeles y David, etc. should lead the struggle towards regaining the old glory that was Bacolor.

This, of course, is easier said than done.  Will the "Athens of Pampanga" lead the charge as its way of regaining its "makislap nang leguan"? (30)