Clerics are quick to warn that strong quakes are what the Bible and Koran describe as part of the signs and premonition for the ‘end of the world.’ It’s a call on man to repent for his sins.

The series of earthquakes that hit Mindanao in the past weeks brought back memories of a similar but stronger and more devastating calamity in the past. It was a gruesome and fearful experience that left my juvenile mind scarred and traumatized for years.

1 April 1955 was a momentous day for the family because it was the twin graduation for me and my sister, Lawanbae Monera, from the Dansalan (now Marawi) Central Elementary School. We were all prepared in our immaculately, well-pressed white graduation wardrobes on hangers ready to be worn, complete with leis and flowers. Everybody was excited because it was the first graduation of family members.

But it was not to be. Before the break of dawn, an earthquake the magnitude of which the residents have not experienced before hit the lake province of Lanao del Sur. I learned later that its magnitude was 7.5. The townsfolk around the lake were the victims, but the brunt of the destruction was at its capital city and center of commerce, Marawi. It was the most damaging earthquake in the history of the region, resulting in about 400 deaths. Our graduation ceremony was canceled. But that did not stop us from posing for photographs, a memento for hurdling another ladder of education. Sadly, the pictures were among my priceless memorabilia lost in the Marawi war.

Former Governor Dimapuno Datu-Ramos, a social media activist, posted in our group chatroom that their “torogan (ancestral home) collapsed… thousands were killed and wounded. One day after the earthquake, President Ramon Magsaysay visited us at the hospital, distributed relief goods and money to the victims”.

President Magsaysay immediately issued a proclamation declaring the existence of a state of public calamity in the Mindanao provinces including Lanao del Sur.

First, we were awakened by a jolt lifting us a bit, followed by the shaking of our bed. We heard distinctly weird rumblings on the ground like somebody rubbing an object against another object.

The air was filled with cries of children, shouts of Allahu Akbar (God is Great) and chants of La ilaha illallah (There is no God but God), phrases instinctively uttered by Muslims in the face of danger. We were herded and rushed to an open space. There were no drills of “duck, cover and hold” as it is now. It was instinct for survival overpowering everybody.

Lanao del Sur is one of the seismically active provinces in the Philippines because of the Mindanao Fault. Lake Lanao, one of the ancient lakes and second biggest (next to Laguna de Bay) in the Philippines, is of volcanic origin.

The 1955 earthquake had tectonic power. According to the accounts of those living by the lakeside, the ground tilted to the southwest side of the lake, pushing waters to inundate the towns on that side. A large ground in the town of Tugaya was submerged in waters and, for years, one could see houses standing underneath the lake. The other side of the lake was dried out of water, exposing wriggling fishes and marine life on the lake bed. Residents had a field day collecting helpless fishes. But after a few minutes, the water returned drowning some unsuspecting residents. My uninitiated mind theorized that the movement of the water could have been a tsunami of some sort. But to this day, it was not explained to me scientifically. The more plausible explanation is the report that the tremor was caused by what volcanologists call a seiche described as “a phenomenon causing temporary oscillation in an enclosed body of water caused by strong ground shaking.”

Earth phenomenon is easily explained by science. But this hardly diminishes man’s belief in the Supreme Being presiding over occurrences on earth. In fact, clerics are quick to warn that strong quakes are what the Bible and Koran describe as part of the signs and premonition for the “end of the world.” It’s a call on man to repent for his sins. For all the scare it caused, it’s really a great reminder of man’s mortality and transient life on earth.

The upside of that horrible experience is that now I am no longer unnerved and unsettled by temblors. The downside is, other than the horrendous damages, we did not have the graduation march and song our class practiced for days.