CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — A pall of gloom hovered at the old city hall last Monday, tourism chief Ching Pangilinan observed.
To her, the sadness must have been stirred by the passing of Engr. Mariano Castro last Sunday at age 71 because of cancer.
Castro — Lolo Marni to one and all— was missed at once.
A jolly figure, he charmed everyone with his humor and humility. “He spoke to street sweepers and mayors like they were his equals,” Pangilinan shared.
He was not a permanent employee or a regular consultant of the local government but he was often seen there because as a civil engineer, he volunteered in flood-control programs and led inspections and cleanups of drainages.
But Castro was helping beyond being San Fernando’s anti-flooding czar.
Ma. Theresa Laus, herself a civic leader, said: “The best way to introduce him is Mr. Megadike.”
He earned that moniker because the Save San Fernando Movement, after the success of the “To Dike or To Die” campaign, assigned him to monitor the design and construction of the FVR Megadike, a 56-kilometer-wide U-shaped structure that trapped Mt. Pinatubo’s lahar on Pasig-Potrero River following the Cabalantian Tragedy in Bacolor in 1995.
Castro, like business leaders in Pampanga, did not want the business capital of San Fernando be left to the mercy of Nature, according to Board Member Ananias Canlas, former mayor of nearby Bacolor.
As local officials touted the FVR Megadike as Pampanga’s last defense against lahar, Castro was not just talk, talk and talk. Rainy season or not, Castro monitored the FVR Megadike for cracks, gullies, water ponding, seepage and displacement of sabo dams, reporting his findings straight to the Department of Public Works and Highways.
If he was not on the ground, he was tuned in to the two-way radio of soldiers and cops assigned to monitor lahar from Delta 5 station, some 10 kms southeast of the volcano.
Castro, as almost everybody knew, was the “workhorse” of the business community’s response to the Mt. Pinatubo disaster, business leader Rene Romero recalled. “When he planned, he delivered.”
Castro worked from the background while his friend, business leader Levy Laus, did all the talking to convince the national government not to forsake Pampanga. Laus died in a helicopter crash in April 2019 in Bulacan.
The Ligligan Parul (Giant Lantern Festival) would not have been orderly if not for Castro. He was the festival’s chair in 2013 and head of the physical arrangement committee for over 15 years.
“O jo!” was his favorite banter but he hardly talked when he worked.
Gov. Dennis Pineda said Castro exemplified a genuine civic leader.
“He was our Citizen Marni.”
