fire

More than anywhere else on earth, these five thousand miles of islands are where beauty and the beast most dramatically coexist, where you can see the most breathtaking scenery and at the same time enjoy, suffer, or derive vicarious pleasure from the risk that something- and who knows what? who knows when?- may happen. -Simon Winchester, "Beauty and the Beast," Condé Nast Traveler (1998)

In 1992, my high school classmate Dean and I went to Pampanga to integrate with farmers who survived the explosion of Pinatubo volcano. Dean was then an economics major in Harvard and I was taking the same course in the University of the Philippines. Dialectical materialism was the order of the day in UP and I wanted my friend to experience that discursive space. It was the volcano of social ferment that we explored then- the force that explodes now and then to radically change society whenever a ruling class loses its moral ascendancy and overstays its welcome. (Its terrible fire by the way is what Rep. Mikey Arroyo, in his bid for Constitutional change, is playing with.)

We didn't go to the volcano itself, but we did see a new landscape, a moonscape, that geology had created: what were once towns and rice fields were covered with gray ash called lahar.

When a Polish friend visited recently I decided to take him on an exploration of Filipino culture as a product of this geological marvel. Like the Philippines, Poland never surrendered its sense of nationhood through centuries of invasions by neighboring states such as Sweden, Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Its capital Warsaw was the most bombed city after World War II (our capital Manila was the second). In 1989, a mere three years after we overthrew a dictatorship through People Power, the Poles overthrew the yoke of communist oppression through open elections. We would eat spicy sisig, finely diced cheeks of pig with garlic, onion, and siling labuyo (native chilies). We would step on the balcony in Malacanang Palace where Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos waved to supporters for the last time before being ejected to exile. At the heart of this journey, however, would be a physical volcano: I wanted us to see the crater lake of Pinatubo and swim in the entrance to the center of the earth.

It was a three-hour trek past peaks of compressed gray ash, now covered with young forests. Following the course of an old river, we encountered groups of three or five Aeta children who frolicked in the water. Where did they live? How did they find their way back to their nomadic tribe? Moving forward, we travelled further and further back, to the time when fire conspired with the other elements to create these islands, rich in gold, flora and fauna. Short of breath, knees engorged with blood, and soaking wet from intermittent showers, we were finally rewarded with a vista of luminous green waters that lit Pinatubo's mouth, our faces, and the cloudy sky. Now where was that bottle of Żubrówka? The occasion deserved liquid fire.

Aside from Pinatubo, which in 1991 created the second largest eruption of the 20th century, other volcano must-sees in the Philippines are Taal, the world's smallest active volcano, and fickle and fiery Mayon, still the world's most perfect cone. Volcano aficionados may then complete the circuit by seeing the 49 others- a complete list is here. Thanks to Grace Nono for the song "1996 Bayani Ka!"