Good evening sir.

Good evening

Do you recall the 1919—I’m sorry. Do you recall the 1990 earthquake in Baguio?

Yes

And you were there… to experience it

Yes

Could you tell us about your experience?

Okay.

I was in college that time and ugh, on that dsay there was a strike at school so our classes were
suspended I was tasked to help in the house and take care of my small brothers and grandma.

So there were 4 of us at the house

It was a normal day, you might say, but towards the afternoon my kid brothers woke up so we were at
the backyard at that time and suddenly the earth started to shake. It was--I felt that it was in an up and
down motio and I grasbbed my brothers and sat down

I thought the worse was over but then, another very, very strong earthquake followed that and this
trime, the direction for me, was sideways.

And because of the motion that was so strong, I was holding my brothers in a sitting position and we fell
forward and hit our foreheads on the wall of the house. I knew then.. this was an extraordinary thing
because of how powerful it was. I recall that the leaves of the trees were shking because, u,m most of
the backyard had trees and you could hear how strong the leaves were shakinbg or making sound…
and… and how strong the earthquake was.

From the house I heard a lot of pots and things falling down and I forgot that my grandmothger who was
asleep then, so I waited for the shaking to stop and I went to look at my grandmother and she was fine
she was just sleeping but I could see all around the house everything or al lot of things had fallen over.
And I thought of looking at our neighbors and there were houses which were destroyed. Some were
three-story houses and they were levelled and became one-story houses and others were also
destroyed. So what came in my mind was since we had no cellphones then, to listen to the radio and
when I opened the radio and tried all stations there was no sound ecept static and that was an
indication for me that the destruction was really, really all over the place. So I started to worry about my
other relatives, my parents and my other brothers and sister because they were at down town and, uh, I
was hoping that nothing had happened to them and then it started raining, aside from the rain there
was ice so there was hale with the ice.

Then your inscitncs for survival next kicked in because there was no power therewwas no water there
was no communtcation so what we did was to survive we had to used firewood becauyse the lpg
deliveries were… were going to be used up so we had to spare using the lpg when we had wood snd
then for water when it rained we collected awater and we also had help with naighbord who had a
spring-- who had a spirng in their property so we went to fetch water at their place.
And then ug after afew days food became rationed. You could buy only a number of loaf of bread
because groceries most groceries were closed and those who opened had to sell to as much people as
possible.

So, it was that time that I thought your money wasn’t worth anything if you cannot spend it to buiy food
and other things you need. And later we learned that the number of casulaties were realry really so
many that the city started to smell smell of decay decaying scent so I really didn’t want to go at the
downton bec they were having problems with the decaying problems at the twon and.. you wouldn’t
want to experience that tremor that hit the city then bec you would really want it to stop bec when I felt
it it was like I was praying and asking that the shaking would stop bec you felt that youwere so helpless
and so vulnerable, you couldn’t do anything so… you felt really afraid and you could not really think of
what to do but to try and keep yourself safe.

Thank you for sharing your story sir

Okay