The Holy Angel University will open a museum that will serve as a memorial to the cataclysmic eruptions of Mount Pinatubo in 1991.
The museum will be inaugurated on June 14, the 25th anniversary of the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.
The museum is located at the HAU’s Center for Kapampangan Studies and will be open to the public, according to Robby Tantingco, director of the Center.
Tantingco said the museum will feature a mural timeline of the history of Mt. Pinatubo, a mural sculpture by Kapampangan artist Arnel Garcia, and various exhibits executed by researcher-artist Joel Mallari.
“What Kapampangans experienced has no parallel in world history, except maybe the ten plagues of Egypt in the Old Testament,” Tantingco said. “We had an eruption, earthquakes, lahars, typhoon, rain of sand, ash and rocks, day turning into night–all at the same time! And the calamity went on for the next five years.”
The opening of the museum will coincide with the launching of the book “Our Common Fault: Stories of Loss and Survival in the July 16, 1990 Earthquake,” authored by Lia T. Pangilinan and published by the Center for Kapampangan Studies.
“Last year was the 25th anniversary of the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that left a swath of destruction from Central Luzon all the way up to Northern Luzon,” Tantingco said. “The book is our memorial to all those who suffered or died in that earthquake.”
The earthquake led to a series of geological events that caused Pinatubo’s eruption one year later, Tantingco said.