Steve Juanico

Professor Marci Goodman

Introduction to College Writing ACE 095

30 September 1997

                                                       False Alarm

    Earthquakes seldom occur in my small corner of the globe. I can only recall 

two noteworthy incidents from my childhood.  This dearth of memories, however,

offered little comfort to me, for my country lies within the Pacific "ring of

fire," an area where seismic and volcanic activities are frequently felt and

feared.  In 1990, when the first whiff of the monsoonal air arrived, a series of

earthquakes jolted the entire country that affected some provinces adversely,

while others only superficially.  In retrospect, I believe now that those events

were a prelude to the the fateful eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991.

    Before Pinatubo's cataclysmic eruption, I entered the University of the

Philippines as a freshman majoring in political science.  I considered myself a

campus pioneer since I belonged to the College of Arts and Sciences' freshman

batch that transferred from the old university campus in Iloilo City to the new

and idyllic campus in Miag-ao—located about fifty kilometers from the city.

    It was my fourth day in the Miag-ao campus.  The sky looked bleak and the

humid air smelled like freshly mown grass that afternoon.  I was killing time with

three of my roommates in our room at Freshman Hall.  We were talking about the

topic that preoccupied our minds most of the time—beautiful women—when

suddenly we heard a thunderous crack.  It sounded like thunder.  A fraction of a

second later, the Hall shuddered.  One of my roommates shouted, "Earthquake!

Earthquake!"  Upon hearing these calamitous words, we quickly fled the room for

our lives.

    The lobby was a scene of utter turmoil and confusion.  Panic reigned supreme.

People were screaming, shoving, and scurrying their way to the main door. Some

came streaming out of the showers completely naked. No one used the emergency

exits.  They were locked.  I saw a freshman from Cebu shake violently the locked

iron  grating of an exit and shouting, "Help! Help!"  He looked like a caged

monkey about to die.  Heroically, I grabbed him by the neck and dragged him out

toward the door.

                                                                                                                       Juanico 2

    When everyone had reached the relative safety of the Hall's front lawn, the

earth ceased its rumblings.  Aside from a few minor bruises and frightened egos,

no one got seriously hurt. The tremor lasted about twenty seconds.  I later

learned that the magnitude of the earthquake, according to the Modified Mercalli

scale, was five.  I chose the Mercalli, instead of the Richter, because it aptly

described the event: "Detected indoors and outdoors by everyone. Many people

frightened. Buildings tremble throughout."  I never learned what produced the

initial sound.

    The second incident occurred a few weeks after the first one. At about four

in the wee hours of the morning, I was roused from sleep by a loud report.  It

sounded again like thunder.  Then the earth quivered. My roommates and I in

unison jumped out of our beds and prepared to flee our room once more.

    All of us except Deaño.

    I saw him leap like a leopard toward the window from the other side of the

room. With a strength that can only be driven by fear and madness, he proceeded

to slash the nylon window screen and smash the jalousies. As he was poised to

jump, I screamed at him, "What do you think you're doing, Deaño?"

    "It's okay, Steve!" he shouted back, "I'm bailing out of here!"

    "Who the f--k do you think are? Batman?" I hysterically asked him.

    He answered me by jumping off the two-story dormitory.

    "Deaño! Noooooo!" I screamed while running toward the window, but I was too

late.

    The tremor stopped the moment he hit the ground. Slowly, I peeked out of the

disfigured window.  Deaño, to his credit, landed on his feet like a cat.

    "Are you all right?" I kindly asked him.

    "I'm fine," he gallantly replied.

    He made soft yelping sounds, though he tried his best to conceal it, as he

hobbled back to the dorm.

    No one said anything about it, but the smell of Ben-Gay pervaded our room for

a week, and we had to chip in for the repair of the window.  No one also could

explain the sound.

                                                                                                                      Juanico 3

    The frequency and intensity of the of the earthquakes lessened in the

following weeks.  A little quake here, a little quaver there. One puny rumble

after another. Nothing to get alarmed about.

    One quiet evening, my roommates and I were intently doing our homework in

our desks.  Suddenly, a roaring crash broke the air of silence and tranquility.  It

sounded again like thunder.  We all stood and stared at each other with a

comprehending look that said: earthquake!  Once again, we fled our room for our

lives.

    All of us except Wendy.

    He was desperately searching for something in his bed.

    "My Rosary! My Rosary! Where's my Rosary?" he hopelessly kept asking

himself.

    I guess he didn't want to face Peter at the Pearly Gates without his prayer

beads.  His religious piety impressed me.  (I wonder if he wore it like a necklace

during the last two occasions?)

    But Rosary or not, Deaño went back and pulled him out of the room. Deaño may

be deficient in other things, but courage was not one of them.

    We yelled, "Earthquake! Earthquake! Run for your lives!" as we dashed all the

way down to the lobby.

    An amazing sight stopped us dead in our tracks.  People were loitering

aimlessly, laughing, doing nothing.  Some were idly watching the evening news.  A

few "lovebirds" were nesting outside on the lawn.

    "Earthquake! Earthquake!" we madly shouted at them.

    Everybody turned in our direction and gazed at us as if something went

terribly wrong in our genetic makeup.

    "Didn't you hear the sound?" we hysterically inquired.

    Randy, the lanky and resident gay queen, with a grating voice answered

matter-of-factly, "It was just thunder."

    They were all smiling at us once we realized our mistake.  I never been so

embarrassed in my whole life. I felt like a complete idiot. No wonder I couldn't

feel any tremulous vibrations.  To make matters worse, I was just wearing

slippers and shorts.  Dejectedly, we bowed our heads and went back to our room.

    From that day onward, I always check the sky first whenever I hear thunder.

I expect lightning to follow.  But I still cannot explain what made the sound.