"Taal"

 

I SCAN heaven for cues if I should water the garden. The husband checks his smart phone for the weather forecast.

Last July 1, as the aspins (asong Pinoy) and I were tangling over the hose, a boa constrictor they may soon chomp to extinction, the husband asked me to go inside the house. Taal Volcano erupted at 3:16 p.m.

In Cebu, I have lived near the sea for most of my life. When Taal Volcano erupted last Jan. 12, 2020, we adjusted in Silang, 38 kilometers away, to living in the shadow of a volcano. 

Sunk in a prehistoric caldera filled with lake water, Volcano Island was a postcard-perfect image first glimpsed from the Emilio Aguinaldo Highway in Tagaytay in 2012. Alone at home on that Sunday in 2020, I woke up from siesta to the smell of sulfur wafting in through the open window. The main crater erupted at around 1 p.m.

Closing the window to keep out the smell of what was first thought to be someone’s illicit bonfire was mere spontaneity for someone whose familiarity with a volcano was limited to choosing between the white or grey crayon to color the plumes emerging from a “smoking” cone drawn in grade school.

The sea is mercurial but nothing redefines uncertainty like a volcano. January 2020 woke up again what lay dormant underneath a landmark facilely described for tourists as the “largest lake on an island in a lake on an island in the world”. 

In the course of weeks of breathing for the first time behind an N95 mask to sieve the toxic sulfuric fumes and particles from the Taal ashfall that blanketed Calabarzon, Metro Manila, and parts of Central Luzon and Ilocos Region in 2020, I read that “taal” in the Old Tagalog spoken in Batangas, where the Volcano Island is located, means “true” or “genuine”.

Before the July 1 eruption, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) allayed the anxiety of citizens by stating that the smog in Metro Manila is caused by human activities, not the volcanic smog or vog spreading from the Taal region. 

In a June 30 press release, Phivolcs confirmed that volcanic SO2 had spread over the National Capital Region and adjoining provinces. “As a scientific institution, we have been reminded again of the value of uncertainty and the limitations of our data, the value of citizen observation and the need to constantly challenge our own perceptions, interpretations and ideas.”

A day after the July 1 eruption, I admired a pure white moth nearly merging with the sheet of wood it was resting on. An orange strip running between the wings marred the white against white image.

“Taal,” according to the ancient Batangueños, is not perfection but the humility of accepting imperfection and living with uncertainty.

(mayette.tabada@gmail.com, 0917 3226131)

* First published in SunStar Cebu’s July 4, 2021 issue of the Sunday editorial-page column, “Matamata”

Gray

THE SMELL of sulfur wafting in through the open bedroom window was odd in the usual Sunday mix of neighbors’ cooking odors. Alone at home, I was reading a novel to break days of plodding through philosophy and talking to an absentminded self.

When I went outside to feed the stray cats, Kitkat had something grey sprinkled on her coat of white-with-isles-of-egg-yolk.

I stooped to flick off the dust and saw a portion of the porch neatly coated in the same grey: ashfall from Taal Volcano’s phreatic explosion of steam and ash that took place earlier that afternoon.

In more than half a century, I have weathered calamities. But even the strongest typhoon—Ruping in 1990, which sank a record number of 88 ships in the Cebu City Harbor—spends its fury after hours. Power and water are restored; roads are cleared. And the comforts of daytime lying in bed, listening to the wind howl and the rain attack the roof, soon end with the resumption of classes.

Taal Volcano is an unexpected education. We live in Barangay Putingkahoy, about 15 kilometers away from Taal, at the margin of the 14-km radius danger zone initially redlighted by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) for the immediate evacuation of residents.

Since Sunday, the Phivolcs has extended its hazard mapping to the 17-km radius and continues to flag the Alert Level 4 six days after, warning of a “possible hazardous explosive eruption… within hours to days.”

Since we moved to Silang more than five years ago, I have yet to glimpse the white trees after which the barangay is named. In last Sunday’s twilight, prematurely ushered in by ashfall mingling with the downpour, the eponymous white trees suddenly materialized all around.

Ash is a strange opponent. Wind, rain, and flood bring devastation in the blink of an eye; after a storm, though, we have cleared, repaired, and restored. And moved on.

As a metaphor for indeterminacy, the wind-borne ashes of Taal fit an environmental and political catastrophe that defies scientific forecasting or PR-finessing. Even the cats, feral and eternally watchful, favor napping on the pillows of ash that have accumulated under the trees. Dark congealed crusts drip from leaf blade like filigrees of oxidized silver and delicate lace.

Ashfall is experienced differently by farmers raising livestock and vegetables, “bakwits” (evacuees), rescue workers and volunteers, homeowners, scientists, town officials, journalists, and businessmen. Even the animals are stratified by ash: those with economic value like pigs and horses; and those without, like dogs and cats.

The indefinite delineates us.


Photo: Kitkat and her coat of ash, day after Taal Volcano’s phreatic eruption on January 12, 2020



(mayette.tabada@gmail.com/ 0917 3226131)


* First published in SunStar Cebu’s January 19, 2020 issue of the Sunday editorial-page column, “Matamata”