So To Speak: The Day We Tore the Usufruct Papers
Thirty-five years after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, many people remember the ashfall and the lahar.
What fewer people remember is that after surviving one of the worst natural disasters in our country’s history, thousands of survivors had to fight another battle—not against nature, but against a policy.
In the rehabilitation years following Pinatubo, the Mount Pinatubo Commission pushed a usufruct scheme for resettlement housing. Under that arrangement, beneficiaries would occupy the houses but would not immediately enjoy full ownership rights.
For many policy makers, it may have been an administrative solution.
For many survivors, it was unacceptable.
People had already lost their homes, their farms, their livelihoods, and in many cases, generations of memories buried by lahar. To ask them to live permanently under uncertainty seemed to add another burden to an already unbearable tragedy.
During my recent interview with former Bacolor Mayor Atty. Ananias “Jun” Canlas, memories of those years came rushing back.
Mayor Jun recalled how Bacoloreños learned that resilience was not simply the ability to endure hardship. It was the willingness to organize, protest, and stand together.
And stand together we did.
Homeowners’ associations, local officials, church workers, people’s organizations, and ordinary evacuees found common ground. We came from different backgrounds and held different political beliefs, but we shared one conviction:
Disaster victims deserved homes—not privileges that could be withdrawn.
I was then an activist. I remember going from one evacuation center to another. I remember the meetings, the discussions, the marches, and the long conversations about rights and dignity.
And I remember one symbolic act that remains vivid in my mind even after three decades.
The tearing of the usufruct papers.
For many outsiders, it may have appeared dramatic.
For the displaced, it was a declaration.
It was a way of saying that survivors who had already lost everything should not spend the rest of their lives wondering whether the roofs above their heads truly belonged to them.
Looking back today, I realize that the debate over usufruct was never merely about legal terminology.
It was about a deeper question:
Should rehabilitation restore only houses—or should it restore dignity?
The answer given by the people of Bacolor was clear.
A house becomes a home only when families can live without fear that someday, somehow, it can again be taken away from them.
Thirty-five years later, the lahar has long hardened.
But the lessons remain.
Bacoloreños did not merely survive Pinatubo.
They fought for the right to begin again.
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Author’s Note: These reflections are based on personal experience and on my recent interview with former Bacolor Mayor Atty. Ananias “Jun” Canlas, one of the local leaders who witnessed and participated in the rehabilitation years following the Pinatubo disaster.
