Shaken and Stirred Memories

I’m a light sleeper, so I easily woke up this morning when my bed started shaking. Earthquake, I thought. I’ve experienced enough of those so that my first thought was, “Let’s see if it’ll subside soon.” But the ground shook even more. So I did what they drilled to us back in grade school with all those fire and earthquake drills—I calmly stood up and went under the table beside my bed. Underneath, I felt another strong surge; I could hear my bedroom door go thump, thump. Finally the shaking subsided and I heard voices outside my room. Everyone was awake by that time. I checked the time: 3:15am.

I was reminded of the 1990 earthquake, the one which leveled Baguio. At that time I was already working at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Our office was on the third floor. It used to be the kitchen area of a restaurant during the Imelda years, so our office had tiles on the floor and walls. When the quake hit, it was late afternoon. I was inputting a document on (retro alert!) Wordstar 5 so I could print it out on a (more retro alert!) dot-matrix printer when the ground started shaking.

Our secretary and I stood up from our desks. She said, “Uy, lumilindol!” Funny how it’s so necessary to state what’s so obvious.

“Ang lakas, ha.” I said. The ground continued to shake. “At ang tagal pa!” I remembered my grade school drills and all those Drama In Real Life articles I read in Reader’s Digest. “Go under your table, quick!” I shouted at her. The ground continued shaking; it seemed it would never stop. “Grabe, tumatagal na talaga ito ha!” I remarked.

But soon the intensity subsided, though the shaking continued. She and I stepped out from under our desks and went to the huge windows where we could see Philsite nearby. “Ang daming tao, o!” she exclaimed, as we watched the employees at Philsite stream out of the doors.

Then a thought struck me. “I don’t think it’s safe to be near windows during an earthquake,” I said, nonchalantly. “They might shatter and hit us.” “Oh?” she asked, distracted. We continued to stay and watch the people outside.

Another thought hit me. “Hindi ba CCP nasa reclamation area? Eh kung lumubog na lang tayo?” I said out loud. “Naku wag naman,” our secretary replied.

Then our boss came in. Our boss was this quiet, unassuming, totally gay theater director and visual artist. His right eyebrow seemed to be perennially raised; regardless of whether he’s walking, striding or running, he always moved with a subtle hip sway. He sashayed into our office and calmly announced: “O. Lumindol. Fly na tayo dito.”

The secretary and I rushed out the door. “O. Dahan-dahan. Don’t panic,” he called to us with nary a trace of concern in his voice. It was a matter-of-fact statement, like, “Hair color: brown.”

We half-walked and half-ran down the stairs. Imagine walking down the grand staircase of the CCP Main Theater while the capiz-shell chandeliers swayed dangerously overhead; it was so dramatic and surreal. People were alternately screaming, “Mahuhulog ang chandelier!” and “Don’t panic!”

By the time we converged at the open space outside the Little Theater entrance the quake had stopped, but fear kept us all shaking still. The power and phone lines were down. But we were alive. And so we started swapping earthquake stories. A week after we were still swapping stories: “Where were you…?” “Did you know that…?” “Ay naku, I was….”

Baguio and Dagupan suffered greatly in that earthquake, increasing the number of ghost stories in those areas for years to come.