Landslide in Catanduanes

The Manila Times

1999

Captain Henry loves sunsets. That’s why he invited me to sit with him in the cockpit of his Philippine Air Force C-130 Hercules. Sunsets are glorious occasions, he said. Especially in the greenhouse-like cockpit of a Herky Bird.

After being burned and toasted a nice dark brown color in storm-ravaged Catanduanes, I would have jumped at the chance to ride the good captain’s Hercules even if it were past midnight. After all, he was flying back to Manila, and I was getting used to the idea of free rides home.

But the sunset really was glorious. A Herky Bird is a wondrous piece of machinery. First built in 1954 by Lockheed, a C-130 is a four engined turboprop cargo plane with a rear ramp that can carry two fully armed platoons, a V-150 armored personnel carrier and a Jeep, or a presidential limousine. For a lot of soldiers, it’s an angel of mercy.

But few people have ever been in a Herky’s cockpit. It’s like a greenhouse, with plexiglass panels all around, even at the pilot’s feet. There we were, flying just above the clouds, when the sun began to set.

The clouds turned crimson all around, and the whole cockpit was bathed in a beautiful red glow that had us gasping in wonder. It was so surreal, you could imagine someone singing the Hallelujah chorus at the back. There was silence all around, as the red ball creeped lower beyond the mountains. Since we were flying westwards, it was almost like we were chasing the sun as it began to hide behind the horizon. This had the effect of lengthening the sunset.

Captain Henry nudged me. Take a picture, take a picture. Do something. I muttered an apology for having run out of film, and silently cursed myself for not bringing more. God must love pilots.

I had arrived in Catanduanes a week ago in the tail end of typhoon Reming. I had been stuck in the Manila Times desk for months. Although I held the title Chief of Reporters, I was generally acting as the city editor. This meant I took charge of deploying reporters and guiding their coverages. In the late afternoons, I would brief the editors on the biggest stories of the day during the story conferences.

Typhoon Loleng roared into the country one late October, but not before pounding Catanduanes first. Catanduanes is the easternmost island of the Philippines, and while the rest of Luzon is protected from typhoons by the spine of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range, Catanduanes sits alone in the Pacific. People often refer to the island-province as the doormat of every typhoon that slices into the Philippines.

A wire report came in that Loleng had caused a landslide in Catanduanes that had buried and killed at least thirty people. This was the least of Catanduanes’ problems – power was out, and most public transport to and from the province had also been suspended. I jumped at the first chance to leave the office for the field.

I no longer remember how I got to Catanduanes. The coast guard had suspended all ferry boats to the island, and commercial flights were also on hold. I think I hopped aboard a military flight bringing Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado and the Defense Press Corps to Catanduanes to survey the devastation. So there I was in the capital Virac, with my trusty backpack that Esther had named Grungy, for reasons I will not go into. I had gotten in, but I hadn’t yet thought of how to get out.

Virac was so badly hit that it was hard to imagine how authorities could restore power in the next few months. Aside from the usual sight of houses blown down by the typhoon, electric poles were also lying in the middle of the road, their high tension wires dangling waist-high. This made it all the more difficult for cars to travel to the badly ravaged interior. Instead of sitting on their haunches and complaining, residents found another use for that now-useless high tension wire in the middle of the road, and started hanging their laundry on them.

At first I hitched along with Secretary Mercado. After all, he had the mobility and the resources to get around. We did a spin around the capital and the suburbs, enough for me to gather enough material to send an initial story.

Beside a riverbank, I saw an old lady doing her laundry. It was an incongruous sight. All around her were the ruins of her house and the trunks of trees rendered bald by Loleng’s winds. Yet she was so busy washing her laundry, as if it were the most important chore in the world. I took out my trusty cheap still camera, and snapped a photo. The next day, it was the banner photo of the Manila Times.

LOLENG’S FURY TURNS
BICOL INTO A WAR ZONE
By Ed Lingao
The Manila Times, Oct. 25, 1998

“It’s like a war zone. It’s as if a bomb has been dropped.”
This was how Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado described wide areas in Catanduanes island a day after typhoon Loleng carved a path of death and destruction through the Bicol region.

Most of the houses, according to Mercado, were without roofs. In fact, along many streets in Virac, the capital town, no houses were left standing.

Entire homes were blown or swept away, and coconut and hardwood trees were uprooted. From the air, roofless house and houseless roofs littered the ground like dirty laundry.

I also started writing out a shorter sidebar story for the Times. I hadn’t found a way to transmit my copy from Virac yet, but I knew I could send it back through Lyn Rillon, our Times photographer who rode with us in, and would ride back to Manila with Secretary Mercado. After all, the good secretary had no intention of spending the night here.

We were given some free time to explore the area before the team headed home, so I found a piece of driftwood on a shoreline littered with broken branches and tree trunks, and sat down with a pen and paper and started scribbling my copy.

CATANDUANES NOW A HOWLING WILDERNESS
Ed Lingao
The Manila Times, Oct. 25, 1998

VIRAC, Catanduanes – From the shade of a massive hardwood tree uprooted by Loleng, Ferdinand Garcia contemplated his future and searched for the remains of his past.

Garcia and his three children were rendered homeless by Loleng which swept to sea all traces of his shanty and his belongings in Barangay Guinobaatan, Catanduanes.

Garcia is jobless, making ends meet by occasionally harvesting abaca and copra from the mountains.

What makes matters more difficult is that Garcia has cancer. The apple-sized growth protruding from his stomach is a constant reminder that when things are down, it doesn’t always mean that there’s no other way but up.

With that finished, I handed my paper to Lyn, and hoped that the editors back in Manila could decipher my handwriting. I rode with Lyn, the other reporters, and Secretary Mercado back to the Virac airport, and watched their aircraft take off. There’s something about staying behind and watching your colleagues depart that leaves a heavy feeling of uncertainty in the pit of your stomach. It was a feeling I would feel with alarming regularity.

After the airplane left, I noticed a couple of Hueys warming up for takeoff. I strode over and found out that they were leaving for a mercy flight to San Miguel town, several miles inland. San Miguel was the scene of the landslide that killed more than thirty people. This was the place I had really come to see.

The pilot of one Huey agreed to take me with him. In the troop compartment were several other people, residents of San Miguel who had sought the military’s help in bringing assistance to their town. I slid in beside them and strapped in.

Just then, a television news team arrived. You know when a TV team arrives in the same way you know that a typhoon is here – there’s a lot of noise, some loud voices, and sane people keep their head down low and the foolhardy poke their noses out. It was a TV team from GMA, with Karen Davila and a cameraman. With her was a big hulking guy with grey curly hair. I didn’t know him personally yet, but it was Abner Mercado. A year later, we would all be working together for the same TV network.

But on this hot afternoon, Karen was trying to bargain a ride with the Huey pilot. The pilot could accommodate one more passenger, but of course, Karen insisted on coming with her cameraman. For an irrational moment, I felt that the pilot wanted to bump me off in favor of the TV crew. After all, he probably never heard of The Manila Times. Newspaper reporters are sometimes relegated to the bottom of the trough. The pilot kept looking at me as Karen threw all her convincing powers at him. We’re TV, I have to be with my cameraman, she said. Happily, Abner didn’t insist on riding as well. I just looked away, or tried to look busy. In the end, the pilot said, the hell with it, get in, and we’ll make it to San Miguel with the extra passenger. I don’t know who was more relieved, me or Karen,

I sat on the rightmost edge of the troop bench, and after making space for Karen and her cameraman, I strapped in again. We had bumped into each other a couple of times in the past, and were generally in nodding and smiling terms.

Nothing for me is as exciting and exhilarating as riding a Huey on take-off. You look down at the skids and wonder how all that power and noise can translate into lift. A Huey vibrates like crazy. One moment, its vibrating on the tarmac. The vibration changes frequency, and the next moment, it’s as if the aircraft had vibrated itself into the air. A moment later, the skid under your feet is in the air, and houses and trees are flashing by.

San Miguel is around fifteen kilometers northeast of Virac, so the whole flight didn’t last half an hour. However, we ran into a squall, and since I was sitting at the end of the bench, the rain lashed at my face with large, stinging raindrops. There must have been a crosswind as well, because I noticed that the chopper was flying forward with its nose offset to the left. Since I was strapped into the right side of the bench, and since Philippine Hueys have had their cargo doors removed, I felt like I was flying headway into the wind and rain. I have to admit I wondered if the pilot was flying me into the rain on purpose, or if there really was a crosswind. Then, I remembered that the gunner behind me was also getting wet as well.

Our destination was a barangay called Kilikilihan, which sat beside the Bato river in San Miguel town. The chopper landed, and we all hopped off. Karen and his cameraman started shooting, and I did my interviews. It turned out that an extended family had sought refuge inside a large house at the height of Loleng’s fury. But the hard rain had loosened the soil, and the hill behind the house collapsed and buried everyone in mud.

Villagers converged on the chopper to ask for help, since no vehicles could get through to Kilikilihan. A wounded man needed to be brought to the hospital in Virac. With that, I decided to skip the return flight of the chopper, and simply stay behind. Besides, we hadn’t been half an hour in the village before the pilot said it was time to go.

I told Karen I was staying behind, and she gave me the look that said ARE YOU SERIOUS? I told myself that Virac was just around ten to fifteen kilometers down the road, and there wasn’t any other road I could get lost in anyway.

With that, everyone, including the injured man, jumped in and the fully loaded chopper rose in a storm of grit and rain. Again, that feeling of getting left behind.

THE LONG ROAD TO SAN MIGUEL
By Ed Lingao
Nov. 1 1998

The Huey left in a storm of dust, and the village was again just one more place at the end of the world.

In the wake of typhoon Loleng, Barangay Kilikilihan was cut off from the rest of Catanduanes. The only way in to this village which sustained the most number of casualties from the storm was by helicopter. Dozens of landslides blocked the road to the poblacion, and not even motorcycles could make it over places where the road had altogether disappeared. The other alternative was to walk the 15-odd kilometers to the poblacion.

“Nagpaiwan ka?” an incredulous resident asked as the Huey disappeared down a bend in the swollen river. There always seemed to be something wrong with dropping into a disaster area for a few minutes, and then leaving to pretend that one already knew all about their sufferings and fears, their joys and their hopes. Besides, I thought, there could be another flight out later in the day. Or if things didn’t pan out, I could leg it out.

The village had all but disappeared from the map. Shattered posts marked the remains of houses. Roofs had disappeared. Mud was everywhere, baking slowly under the sun. A few hogs that survived were rooting in the mud. Their owner was lucky; he would have something to eat in the months to come.

The tragedy of Kilikilihan is not the tragedy of the landslides alone. While the village suffered the most casualties because of the landslides, it will suffer more in the next few months, as villagers try to find something to eat.

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TYPHOON-HIT VILLAGE
REGRETS DEFORESTATION
By Ed Lingao
The Manila Times Oct. 28 1998

A hard rain fell Sunday afternoon on the village of Kilikilihan in San Miguel, Catanduanes.

It was a heavy rain on a windless day, the kind that gave an unsettled feeling. You could see and feel the mud steaming up after a hot morning.

In this land which God seemed to have forgotten, even nature has gone awry. This small village at the banks of the Bato river sustained the highest number of casualties at the height of typhoon Loleng. Thirty-six people, mostly children, died here in one landslide that buried a house; 34 bodies were recovered, the other two were left inside to rot.

Kilikilihan was a village born to suffering. In World War II, Japanese soldiers would gather suspected guerillas at the banks of the Bato river and torture them by beating them in the armpits [kili-kili]. Thus the name Kilikilihan.

Over the years, the community grew prosperous, and villagers started cutting down trees to grow abaca, Catanduanes’ number one product. Soon, the hills around Kilikilihan were covered by abaca and coconut trees. Life was simple and sweet – “paradise”, as one villager described it.

But the hills would turn against them. Kilikilihan is bounded by steep hills on one side, and the Bato river on the other. On the day typhoon Loleng came, the river swelled, and the hills tumbled down.

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“Ewan ho kung paano na ito,” said Cenon Dayawon. “Puro ubod ng niyog na lang ang kakainin namin.”

Food would have to be brought in by helicopter, or carried on someone’s back from the poblacion.

“Pasensya ka na sa handa namin,” says Jason Quirino as his mother prepares a meager lunch for us. The meal consisted of canned sardines we were able to buy from a store.

It was especially difficult for the women, the children, the elderly, and the injured. The strong could walk the 15 kilometers to the poblacion to get relief goods. The injured could barely walk.

Renato Tionela lost a toe when a wooden timber fell on his foot during the landslides. His foot is now swollen and infected. Jose Paune’s leg had swollen like a basketball after being hit by debris during the storm. By now it was clear that the next chopper should have these as passengers, and not me. After leaving instructions with barangay officials on how to talk to the pilot, I started down the long road to San Miguel.

“Mahirap talaga ngayon, walang madaanan,” said Bernie, a pastor of the Iglesia ni Cristo I met along the road. In Barangay Mabato, where Bernie is based, we came across a couple digging through the remains of their house.

“Ka Erning, nagsamba na ba kayo?” The couple, sweating, dirty, and knee deep in mud, was taken by surprise. “Samba tayo ng alas tres.”

A smile of remembrance cracked through the thin layer of mud that covered their faces. It was a Sunday.

The storm has passed, and life must go on.

They say the sun is at its hottest just after the fury of a typhoon. Some say it’s really psychological; people who were shivering in the rain just a day before suddenly have to adjust to the humid heat.

When I finally did decide to leg it back to Virac, the sun was already up and the steam was rising from the ground. I had someone point me in the right direction for Virac. I didn’t want to walk for fifteen kilometers, and then be told that Virac was the OTHER WAY up the road. Properly briefed on directions, I put on a floppy hat, dug out my sunglasses, shouldered Grungy, and started my long lonely hike. Along the road, I came across other fellow travelers, including Pastor Bennie, whom I mentioned in the story earlier. After a few hours walking down the rough rocky road, I could feel the sun roasting through the crown of my hat. Occasionally, I would come across a bamboo tube channeling water from a spring, and dip my hat in the cold water or simply put my head under the bamboo for a refreshing semi-shower.

I remember, on the last leg of my hike, bumping into a bunch of people riding a pickup truck. We were just a few kilometers from the capital, and the roads were already open. On their invitation, I hopped gratefully on board the pickup bed and rode the rest of the way to Virac.

I was still able to find a telegraph station that was still working, and filed my story before searching for a hotel of some sort in which to spend the night. The one I did find, like much of Virac, did not have any electricity. So a candle had to suffice in the hot lonely and dark room.

I stayed a few more days in Virac before deciding that I could come home to Manila. The seas were still too rough, and there were no commercial flights to Manila. Thankfully, I found Captain Henry Bulos’ C-130 sitting on the Virac runway with a plane-full of relief supplies and a long line of refugees begging to ride out of Virac. I buttonholed Bulos, who was amused to find a reporter in the middle of nowhere. First thing he asked was if I had a camera. Next thing he asked was if I liked sunsets.

I answered yes to both, and got a ride home. Although I forgot to tell him earlier that I didn’t have any more film.

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Just a short postscript. Five years later, checking in at the Manila International Airport for a flight to Iraq, I bumped into Capt. Henry again. He had resigned his commission in the Air Force, and was flying to Angola to work for TransAfrik, the “mercenary” air outfit that has been hiring PAF pilots. I hope Capt. Henry is still okay. And I hope they have good sunsets in Angola.