Total Solar Eclipse to last 6 minutes--longest in 21st Century

(update)

People from China already saw the solar eclipse and what I know, the natural phenomenon is being watched right now by people from Japan and the Asian micro-islands. (photo on the left was taken in China this morning.)

The natural phenomenon started this 8:25 am and will last until 11:25am--a full 3 hours at least. However, the real thing, meaning the eclipse itself will only last 6 minutes, the longest one in this century.

Here in the Philippines, terrorists exploited the situation by bombing Cotabato City. Two people died and scores injured today.

Here, we will just see a partial one. The last time it happened was in 1999, yet Europe was the one who saw that.

The last time that we experienced a total solar eclipse was last 18 March 1988. The whole of Mindanao saw that. The photo on the left was taken by a Japanese photographer in Davao in 1988. (previous dates were May 9, 1929 and June 20, 1955).

I remember that it was in 1988 when numerous cults went out of their "caves" and forecasted the end of the world. My family was "victimized" by one. My grandmother, a devout Catholic, pasted numerous papers with Latin words in the four corners of our house at that time. What was the political and social circumstances in our country in 1988?

Well, we were under the tumultuous administration of Cory Aquino. Elements of the military were threatening to launch another coup against her (surely they did in 1989---the longest and the bloodliest coup in Philippine history). It was also in 1988, when the Economist interviewed the Marcoses who expressed their desire to return to the Philippines (March 5, 1988 edition). A revinvigorated CPP-NPA-NDF was on the height of their Protracted People's War and the military was busy killing insurgents and arresting people suspected of supporting the revolutionaries. And Mt. Bulusan was spewing small ash and stone projectiles in the sky, which eventually led to an eruption.

Ancient Chinese writers say that solar eclipses are bad omens daw. It precedes major political and economic events.