Pinatubo Tragedy: Transcript

 

[V/O] 00:16: It looks quiet now, but beneath its unearthly beauty, lies one of the planet’s most destructive forces. This is Mt. Pinatubo, an active volcano that erupts once every few hundred years and has done for centuries. But when it last exploded, just under ten years ago, it revealed a deadly modern danger, a dirty military secret. 

 

[Merle Baldonado] 00:48: Out of the 1,200, you have 80% dead and more are dying like Elvira is saying, that it’s happening like it’s happening almost monthly. So just for this last year they have 31 persons dead.

 

[V/O] 01:03: This is the story of people who fled the most powerful force in nature, only to have their lives ruined by the world’s most powerful nation.  

 

[Sergio Osmeña] 01:12: The U.S. military has polluted land in such a way that they’d be in jail if they did this in America.

 

[V/O] 01:29: When Pinatubo first showed signs of eruption, no-one thought it would be a big deal. 

 

[Jamie] 01:36: At that time we were not monitoring Pinatubo, but because of the response of the inhabitants near the volcano, when they reported the unusual activity of the volcano, we immediately sent a quick response team. 

 

[V/O] 01:59: It was just in time, within hours Pinatubo was the biggest volcanic eruption anywhere in more than a hundred years.  Scores died, but Jamie’s early warning meant many more were saved.  

 

[Jamie] 02:16: When it erupted, it was well predicted, so thousands or millions of lives were saved, because of that good prediction. Most of the inhabitants of Tarlac, Pampanga and Zambales were evacuated to evacuation centres. If not, you have seen the effects of the eruption. 

 

[V/O] 02:47: Thousands more were forced from their homes when typhoons caused massive volcanic mudflows. Many were moved here, to the abandoned fields of Clark Air Base, once Washington’s biggest airbase outside of the United States. But no-one knew this apparent haven of safety, was instead a deadly trap.  

 

[Merle Baldonado] 03:11: It used to a… [inaudible]… of the U.S.  air force.  

 

[V/O] 03:14: Merle Baldonado started work here redeveloping the airbase for business. While other Pinatubo evacuees were adapting to their new life, the people passing through Clark Air Base, and especially those moving here, an area called Cabcom, were falling seriously ill. 

 

[V/O] 03:31: What sort of things were they dying from?

 

[Merle Baldonado] 03:33: From internal diseases, like cancer and kind of mostly cancers, uterus, breast, liver cancer…

 

[V/O] 03:45: It took years for Merle’s group to discover the awful truth: that Cabcom had been a toxic dump for the former U.S. base. Several studies found it polluted with mercury, nitrate, lead, insecticides, fuel bi-products and polychlorinated biphenyls among others; insoluble compounds believed to be cancer causing. 40,000 evacuees were moved through Cabcom over several years. They drank its water and grew their food here, with no knowledge of the poison they were ingesting. 

 

[Merle Baldonado] 04:23:  You have all this, whole range of contaminants, that are in many studies have already been established as causing cancer, causing a lot of damage to the health of the people. Also, I wish to add that actually the United Nations environmental program has accepted that this area is a toxic hotspot, in terms of the persistent organic pollutants. 

 

[V/O] 04:52: While many are dying, some have been dealt an even more tragic fate. Six-year-old Abe Turac can’t walk or talk, he has to be fed and cared for every waking moment. He was conceived at Cabcom on the Clark Base, after his mother Elvira fled Pinatubo. When she was three months pregnant with Abe, doctors detected a problem.

 

[Elvira] 05:21: [Filipino dialect] 

 

[V/O] 05:45: He has central nervous system disorder; a common consequence of heavy metal poisoning and he wasn’t the only one. 

 

[Elvira] 05:52: {Filipino dialect]

 

[V/O] 06:06: How do you know it’s linked to the water?

 

[Merle Baldonado] 06:09: Well before that these things never happened to this community and then when they were evacuated some people remained in a resettlement area very close from where they came from, and these people as compared to the people who went through Clark, through Cabcom, were not getting any of these kinds of sicknesses. 

 

[V/O] 06:31: The mother of three other healthy children, Elvira has no doubt who’s to blame for Abe’s condition. 

 

[Elvira] 06:41: [Filipino dialect]

 

[V/O] 07:10: Elvira hopes one day that Abe will get better, but deep in her heart she knows he never will. 

 

[Elvira] 07:17: [Filipino dialect]

 

[V/O] 07:32: She’s dead? 

 

[Sergio Osmeña] 07:33: Oh she’s dead. She died October last year. This lady died July last year. This lady died October last year. 

 

[V/O] 07:45: These are the tortured faces and diseased bodies of Clark’s other victims. 

 

[Sergio Osmeña] 07:50:  Uhh congenital heart disease…

 

[V/O] 07:53: It’s difficult to conclusively prove that this is the result of toxic waste left by the U.S. military. But Philippine senator Sergio Osmeña, believes there’s enough evidence to say that it is. 

 

[Sergio Osemeña] 08:07: He’s a vegetable, he can’t do anything. You had acute leukaemia, you had lots of babies being born mentally retarded or with physical deformities, you had women, especially pregnant women contracting pharyngeal cancer, coming up with kidney disease or kidney ailments, liver ailments etc.

 

[V/O] 08:34: Washington’s embassy in Manila says only that the U.S. practised good environmental stewardship of its military bases. But a 1992 U.S. government internal report says there is in fact significant environmental damage at Philippines bases. Its Defense Department also admits potentially significant liabilities for the clean-up of former bases in several countries, including the Phillipines. But when Senator Osmeña approached the Pentagon for answers, it was a very different response. 

 

[Sergio Osmeña] 09:11: Unfortunately, the United States Defense Department utilized a clause in the 1947 Military Bases Agreement, which holds them harmless from having to rectify any damages on the land that they occupied as military bases. And so this is the legal cover which the United States government has been using in order to evade responsibility, legal or otherwise, for the toxic and hazardous waste that they have left behind in this country.  

 

[V/O] 09:45: So, what are you seeking from the U.S. government then?

 

[Sergio Osmeña] 09:47: Well we’re seeking for them first to live up to their moral responsibility, if they say they have no legal responsibility that’s fine by me, but there is a moral responsibility. Their own laws mandate that ‘pollute, replace’. In other words, you dump the waste, you clean it up.  

 

[V/O] 10:11: While Washington stonewalls, back at Clark base we find another generation at risk. Pinatubo evacuee Emeline Alikto doesn’t realize the danger of wells that have already poisoned so many others. 

 

[V/O] 10:28: Why aren’t you worried about your own kids though, if you’re washing their food in the water from the same area? 

 

[Emeline Alikto] 10:36: [Laughs]

 

[V/O] 10:39: Are your kids ok? Do you see any trouble for your children?

 

[Emline Alikto] 10:42: No, nothing yet.

 

[Merle Baldonado] 10:45: It’s really very dangerous because she became pregnant here and she has young children, and this is the window of vulnerability that is you know, in terms of toxics that’s when they hit you most. 

 

[V/O] 11:03: And the longer the U.S. refuses to even map the toxic sites, let alone clean them up, the more people it endangers. 

 

[Sergio Osmeña] 11:11: Clark supplies portable water to the city of Angeles, so you could be in a situation where the residents of the city of Angeles is going to be poisoned, because they’ve been pumping water from the aqua that has already been contaminated by toxins from Clark.

 

[V/O] 11:45: For Pinatubo’s survivors, there’s a double tragedy: they can’t go home. Millions of tonnes of volcanic ash, known as Lahar, still choke Pinatubo’s rivers, making the mountain dangerously unpredictable. Those who lived here can’t return for at least a generation and in reality,  that means their families can’t come back while the mountain valleys remain dangerous.  

 

[Jamie] 12:14: During rainy season it’s uh..these river channels will be filled with flowing volcanic sediments, muddy sediments.  

 

[V/O] 12:29: Jamie Sinkyoko, the resident volcanologist, knows the dangers here better than most. While the Lahar makes the journey up Pinatubo easier, it’s suffocated the mountain’s life. 

 

[Jamie} 12:44: Before the eruption, they lived a happy life in this valley, because sources of food are very abundant. And right now, everything has been lost, has been destroyed. Especially the aquatic life, and their source of income, farming. 

 

[V/O] 13.14: It’s not far before we find how fragile these valleys are. Heavy rain has made the lahar so soft, our vehicles can go no further. Plants and animals are still scarce, but Pinatubo’s stark beauty is starting to attract a steady stream of tourists, despite concerns about the moving lahar when it rains. 

 

[Tourist] 13:45: It’s not safe. There’s nowhere to hide, there’s no high ground. There is there I suppose, but I wouldn’t like to climb up that. 

 

[V/O] 13:54: Towards the crater the return of the first spindly shrubs give Pinatubo an air of regeneration, but looks are deceptive. The lake’s eerie glow is created by sulphur and volcanic gases that make it dangerous to swim in, let alone drink. But as spectacular as this lake is, Jamie’s not here to enjoy the scenery. The rainwater filling the crater has no way out. Pinatubo has one last terrible surprise for the mountains embattled inhabitants. 

 

[Jamie] 14:38: Water will fill this crater, the water will create an avalanche.

 

[V/O] 14.54: As locals live their lives oblivious to the next disaster, local health staff are still dealing with the last one. Six-year-old Griselle likes drawing, it helps her mind escape the disease she can’t rid from her body. 

 

[V/O 15:13: Is that you? It is! You’re a butterfly there. That’s pretty amazing. And you’re flying away are you? Where would you fly to?

 

[Interpreter] 15:32: She said very far. 

 

[V/O] 15:36: Ahhh, that’s where you want to fly to. Griselle is suffering from the same Leukaemia that’s already claimed the lives of four of her friends. All were conceived at Cadcom on the Clark Airbase. 

 

[V/O] 15:48: If she found out that it was because, you know, people left a big waste, a big mess, what would she like to say to those people?

 

[Giselle] 15:57: [Filipino dialect]

 

[V/O] 16:01: It’s already too late for Griselle, but unless somebody cleans up the sites, she probably won’t be the last victim of a legacy she’s too young to even understand.