The Ruby Tower

“WHY do you keep telling that Ruby Tower story?” That was my knee-jerk response to an attempt by one of our elders in Rizal province to start the endless retelling of the story of Ruby Tower.

It was Monday evening and a minor quake (not “major,” according to Phivolcs) was felt in Metro Manila and – at stronger magnitude – by our countrymen in various parts of Central Luzon.

We were waiting for reports and damage assessment and some of our elders paid us a visit at the City Hall. As reports came in assuring us that there was no major damage to infrastructure in our area, our elders started to recall – among themselves, I presumed – the story of Ruby Tower.

For us who were born later than the 1970s, the Ruby Tower is an unknown edifice. To our parents and grandparents, the Ruby Tower will remain the perpetual reminder of the deadliest earthquake to hit Metro Manila in recent times.

According to their account, Ruby Tower was a six-story residential building which once stood in Binondo, Manila. In 1968, a magnitude-7.3 earthquake rocked the metropolis, damaged many buildings and infrastructure, and caused the collapse of Ruby Tower. Underneath the rubble of that Tower, many lives were lost – at least 300 - and countless individuals were injured.

The epicenter of that quake was Casiguran, Quezon.

“It is important never to forget Ruby Tower,” one of our elders said, calmly but firmly.

“It is a reminder to us,” he added. “Reminder of what,” I asked. “A reminder of many things,” he answered.

“Tell me,” I asked, eager to absorb a lesson.

Our elder’s answer was enlightening.

Here were the lessons he shared. First, Ruby Tower reminds us of

the heroes in us. He said that in the aftermath of that tragedy, many heroes stepped forward. Among them were the rescuers and the many others who volunteered generously to be part of the teams that attempted to extricate the survivors from the ruins.

There were heroes too among those who were buried in the rubble. There were stories of victims whose determination to survive brought out the courageous and the creative in them. There were stories too of parents whose dead bodies were found in a tight embrace with their children who survived the ordeal. These parents apparently used their human bodies to shield their children from the falling debris and saved the latter’s lives in the process.

Second, Ruby Tower reminds us of our constant state of vulnerability. We are always vulnerable to the forces of nature and we must embrace that fact which our elder underscored. He said vulnerability means not being in control of situations and their outcome. It is in this state, he explained, that we begin to appreciate the value of our interdependence. We need to be with each other and to help each other if we are to survive situations that are not in our hands and which are beyond our control.

This state also tells us that we need to learn to trust in a Higher Being – a God who will not forsake us or abandon us in the face of danger.

I got his point. Loud and clear. I added a third lesson.

I said that the Ruby Tower should be a constant reminder to us that we should not toy with human lives.

Based on accounts, subsequent investigations showed that the construction of the Tower did not meet many of the standards set by the building code of that time. There were shortcuts made. Those who made the shortcuts apparently presumed that the metropolis would never be hit by a killer quake. The presumption put people’s lives in danger and eventually led to the death of 300 people.

Earthquakes remind us that we are not totally in control.

However, there are things that we can manage. Among them are our adherence to standards, practices, and methods that mitigate our vulnerability.

The Ruby Tower tragedy happened half a century ago.

Yet, today, buildings are still crumbling in the wake of recent quakes. The suspect remains the indifference to safety standards. We seem not to remember that ignoring these standards put people’s lives in serious danger. We must realize that it was not the earthquake that killed those people – the killers were the debris caused by shortcuts in the construction of the edifice.

How many more quakes should strike us for us to never forget that human lives are precious and must not to be toyed with?

We remember today in our prayers those whose lives were lost in the aftermath of last Monday’s temblor. We pray, too, that we may never forget the lesson of Ruby Tower.

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