My family’s experiences during the worst tragedy that has ever befallen my hometown, the city of Pagadian. At around 12:11 AM of August 17, 1976, a 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck the Moro Gulf and had triggered a series of tsunamis in many parts of Mindanao including our city, claiming thousands of lives.
My siblings and I were all born and raised in Pagadian City, the capital of Zamboanga del Sur which is a province in Mindanao, the southern part of the Philippines.
The year was 1976. I was in third grade and 3 months short of my 8th birthday. We were then residing on Jamisola Extension, Santa Lucia District, the biggest among the 11 coastal districts dotting the city.
Let me start my story on August 16, 1976, a Monday. Everything was normal. An older brother, an older sister, and I all went to the same public grade school, the Santa Lucia Central Elementary School. At that time, part of our school’s surrounding areas was covered with mangroves and swamps; although when you visit the place now, you could no longer see traces of those muddy places.
We all went to school that Monday – my eldest brother to a private high school in a non-coastal district, and the three of us to the Santa Lucia Central Elementary School. Nothing peculiar happened and we all went home safely.
Televisions were then almost unknown in our district so bedtime was as early as 8 PM. But we couldn’t sleep because a small purok (village) named Pagatpat (the local name for the mangrove tree Avicennia) was having a local dance in celebration of the feast of their patron saint. Purok Pagatpat was a swampy place very near the sea and located just behind one of our school buildings.
Although our house then was situated about two hundred meters from our school, the music from the festive village wafted off to our place that we were complaining of being unable to sleep and wishing that the festivity would soon be over. Finally when it was almost midnight, our wish was granted and everything was quiet.
Then at 12:11 in the morning of Aug. 17, 1976, just a few minutes after the festivity came to a stop, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake awakened us again. The quake which had a tectonic origin in the Cotabato trench off the Moro Gulf shook the western and northern provinces of Mindanao.
All of us huddled together in our living room and my mother told us to wrap our bodies with blankets as the night was cold due to a light rain falling outside. My father and eldest brother were trying to prevent the tall wooden cabinet from falling on us. A few minutes later we heard siren shots which my parents initially took to be signs of terrorist attacks, as the 70’s also marked a period of political unrest in many parts of Mindanao.
hi melody,
i’m from a television station in manila. i was wondering where you live right now? i hope you can email me back at josephthaddeus@gmail.com 
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