In Memoriam: Ed Laguerta, 69

NOTE: I wrote this in 2018 when Philippine Daily Inquirer asked us to write about the heroes that keep watch over Mayon Volcano 24/7 especially during its restiveness. You can read the short version of the story about Mr. Eduardo “Ed” Pantua Laguerta here, but below is the full version of the story. When I interviewed him for this story, he was 63 years old, a senior science research specialist, and the resident volcanologist at the Mayon Volcano Observatory. Ask every media worker when Laguerta was still the resident volcanologist and you will get similar responses: He made every effort to make volcano monitoring updates accessible to the public that even young ones would appreciate the science behind it.

Photo from Ma. April M. Manjares

Eduardo Pantua Laguerta had to quit education in 1978 when he was still a college sophomore. He did not expect to be employed by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), then Commission on Volcanology (Comvol), but he believed it was destiny that brought him to the government institution that monitors volcano activities, earthquakes, and tsunamis.

Laguerta was the oldest of five siblings. His parents, both of whom were orphaned and grew up in their relatives’ houses, wanted them to finish their studies.

His father, who was a farmer, was not able to support his education in Far Eastern University where he took up BS in General Engineering. He was forced to go back to his hometown Irosin in Sorsogon province.

Mt. Bulusan

Since Christmas Day of 1933, Bulusan Volcano has not shown any signs of unrest so it was a surprise to the residents in towns surrounding the volcano when the volcano had a phreatic eruption with ash columns reaching up to 1.5 kilometers on July 29, 1978, and then 3 kilometers less than a month after.

“I did not have interest in volcanos,” Laguerta told Inquirer. “When I was growing up, volcanology wasn’t something people talked about especially where I grew up because Bulusan was quiet for a period.”

When he applied to Comvol as an emergency employee, there was no observatory in Bulusan yet.

“Back then, the government wasn’t so strict. Even high school graduates could be a government employee,” he said.

They were using analog records of seismographs to monitor the volcano. He was taught by the volcanologist and the engineers how to process the information they were getting. His bosses must have seen the potential in Laguerta that they employed him as a regular employee.

“Nature has a way of sending you to your destiny. I was destined to be in this profession and Mount Bulusan helped me.”

Eduardo Laguerta, 2018

Finishing Education

In his late 20s, he became a permanent employee of the commission as a utility man. He had about the same job as the volcanologists and then as a radio operator. But he said that his dream was to finish his studies.

Comvol then became Philippine Institute of Volcanology (Phivolc) under Director Raymundo Punongbayan.

“I requested to finish my studies. The management was kind to me and then I moved to Manila in 1982 to finish General Engineering,” Laguerta said.

He was then working in archiving data and transmitting information from the field via radio. He was one of the quick response team during the 1990 Luzon earthquake that killed more than 1,500 Filipinos.

In 1991, he finished his studies and Phivolc has long been renamed to Phivolcs. He was one of the teams sent to Mt Pinatubo when it erupted that year. He used the time after that to get trainings both locally and internationally before he went back to Bicol, this time in Albay, during the 1993 eruption of Mayon Volcano. When Mt. Mayon calmed down, he was assigned at the Mayon Observatory permanently.

Challenges

“It is a challenge because you are studying something you cannot see,” Laguerta said of the difficulties he face as a volcanologist. “You have to interpret what is going on beneath the surface based on the pulses of the electronics.”

“As a volcanologist, you have many roles as the assigned head of an observatory. It’s not just science anymore. There’s political implications because you are the one talking to leaders,” he said.

Laguerta said he found it difficult at first. He knows how to process and detect what kind of earthquake occurred or why it happened, but he kept on thinking what would happen if he commits a mistake when
leaders and communities within risk areas are expecting him to be exact. But he said that new technologies have made it easier especially when communicating findings to Manila.

“You need to have what we call here in Bicol ‘halawig ang pisi’ (extended temper) and you have to think of who you’re representing because if you are careless and you make rash judgement, it will
reflect on the office,” he said.

He said that it was difficult to make careless judgement especially since every decision made by the local government unit (LGU) involves safety of both rescuee and rescuers, time, and public money.

Future of Volcanology

As a public service-oriented institution, Phivolcs has to interact with other organizations and LGUs when Mt. Mayon is not exhibiting unrest. These were the only times when the observatory is calm. They need to teach educational institutions and non-government organizations that were interested in studying the volcano.

“We also have to learn new approaches using new softwares. Us older generations of volcanologists must learn how to use new technology, but what if some are not adaptable to new electronics?” he said. “As head, I cannot force the older volcanologists to have a grasp of new technology. The younger ones only need very little instructions and a manual. They grew up with these kinds of technology.”

Although he said that new technology has made it easier to predict the weather at the top of the volcano when they are doing work and to observe the volcano from afar with drones, he had hopes that future technology will make studying volcanoes just like studying the weather in Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa), where they can predict what will happen beneath the surface.

“Hopefully, volcanology in the future can be forecast. There are forecasts today, but you look at the day-to-day activity and you cannot predict the time. The younger volcanologists must aim to make a technology that will let us see processes underneath a volcano as how we study storms,” Laguerta said.

However, he said, young volcanologists must still learn the past behaviors of volcanoes to know how they behave.