June 12-15 ‘91: The Last Days of Ordinary
By Sonia P. Soto
June 12, 1991, is etched in my memory—not because of any celebration, but because of the strange and fateful turn that day took. We were at the Angeles City Sports Center for our usual Independence Day protest. For us in the progressive movement, June 12 was not a day of freedom, but a day to decry our continuing neocolonial status. Our message was loud and clear: US military bases in Clark and Subic had to go.
I was dressed in my usual protest attire—a white long-sleeved shirt and a hat—when we stepped out toward the plaza. Then the skies opened. But it wasn’t ordinary rain. It was thick and gritty. The water that drenched us felt like mud. Bewildered and alarmed, we began to speculate. Was it fallout from a nuclear explosion? Did something happen at the US bases in Zambales?
Mount Pinatubo, silent for over 600 years, had awakened.
By June 15, the eruption was full-blown. Ash darkened the skies of Central Luzon. Whole towns—including mine—were buried under volcanic debris. Bacolor, my hometown, was one of the worst hit. From 1991 to 1995, lahar flows would return again and again, submerging not just homes and churches but the spirit of an entire community. It was as if the ground itself was reclaiming what was once ours. In a span of days, we lost what generations had built. In the span of years, we endured heartbreak after heartbreak.
And yet, with bitter irony, that same catastrophe achieved what years of political struggle could not. Mount Pinatubo did what our protests, petitions, and campaigns had failed to do—it forced the US military to leave. As ash and lahar spread across Luzon, the American troops quietly evacuated Clark and Subic. They left behind empty bases and unanswered questions. Nature, not law or protest, brought an end to direct US military presence. The RP-US Military Bases Agreement was no more. On September 16, 1991, the Philippine Senate voted—by a slim margin of 12 against 11—to reject the proposed new treaty that would have extended the lease of US military bases for another ten years. It was a historic decision, signaling the formal end of direct US military presence in the country, and affirming what the eruption had already made materially inevitable.
In the aftermath, survival became resistance. We set up community kitchens. Relief work became our activism. Bayanihan, once a slogan, became a lifeline. From rubble and ash, we rebuilt not just homes but hope. We fought not just for aid, but for justice—for recognition of our right to life, land, and dignity.
As someone from Bacolor, I live with this history every day. I remember the silence of the sunken town plaza, the half-buried belfry of San Guillermo Church, the muted cries of families forced to leave everything behind. But I also remember the stubborn will to survive. The grit. The courage. The choice to stay, to rebuild, to never forget.
Three decades later, I reflect not just with sorrow, but with pride. Bacolor was battered but unbowed. From 1991 to 1995, we endured some of the worst years imaginable. And yet, we are still here. The pain of losing our town repeatedly carved itself into our bones—but it also steeled us for what lay ahead.
I was born and raised in Bacolor, Pampanga—a proud Kapampangan town with a soul rooted in its heritage. Before 1991, it was a place of adobe churches, bustling fiestas, and memory-laden streets. The volcano changed all that. But it did not change who we are.
Let this be a reminder to the next generation: history does not always unfold in speeches or laws. Sometimes, it erupts. And when it does, we must find the strength to rise, to rebuild, and to never forget. #