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<a href="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/presidents/ramon-magsaysay.webp" rel="lightbox">
<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/presidents/ramon-magsaysay.webp"  ui-corner-all" alt="Ramon Magsaysay" />
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(President Ramon Magsaysay on his state of the nation address on January 24, 1954 (Photo credit:  Presidential Museum and Library of the Philippines))
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<p>
Born on August 31, 1907 in Iba, Zambales, Magsaysay was elected as the country's seventh President in November 1953 and began his four-year term on December 30 of the same year.
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<p>
He won the affection of the Filipino people because of his selflessness and dedicated leadership, even opening the gates of Malacanang to the common people.
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<p>
He was heading back to Manila after a speaking engagement at three educational institutions in Cebu on March 16, 1957 when the presidential plane "Mt. Pinatubo" crashed on Mt. Manunggal.
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<div class="book-extract">
<p>
Manunggal is a mountain range curving like an arm just north of Cebu City. It's such an obscure mountain,  Its peak rises about 3,000 feet above sea 

level.  At that time, the lower slopes have been deforested by kaingins; the upper slopes are steep, ending not on sharp peaks but on rough plateaus. 

From the center of the range springs a river, the Balamban, which winds all around the mountain and its base and then flows through the western part of Cebu island into the sea.
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<p>
Ten minutes after it left Cebu, the Mount Pinatubo confronted Mount Manúnggal and was flying toward the central plateau of the range, which is the 

source of the Balamban. The plane had lost altitude - from "metal fatigue",  according to investigation - but could have cleared the mountain and 

flown safely beyond it but for a giant tree standing on the summit.
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<div class="image-500">
<a href="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/rm-crash.webp" rel="lightbox">
<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/rm-crash-t2.webp"  alt="Mount Pinatubo Plane wreakage, Magsaysay plane" />
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(The wreck of Mount Pinatubo (Photo credit:  Philippines Free Press, March 18, 1961))
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<p>
As plane and tree collided, the passengers inside were hurled against or out of their seats and the tree sliced off one of the plane's wings. This 

wing was found near the foot of the tree. The crippled plane itself dropped much further down, about a hundred feet down the slope, which explains  survivor Nestor Mata's sensation of “hurtling down a black bottomless pit”. When the plane hit the ground, it exploded and burst into flames.
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<p>
The fire - so intense it melted metal and fused bodies into an almost solid lump of coal - raged most fiercely nearest the fuselage but spared the tail 

and cockpit. The passengers seated nearest the fuselage - there were apparently seven of them, including the President - were burned beyond recognition, 

were turned into a single mass of charred flesh. The President was identified only by a wristwatch and ring embedded in the black mass.
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<p>
About 14 other bodies, also horribly burned, were thrown out of the plane by the explosion and scattered lower down the hill. A few feet away was 

another group of bodies that had been only partially burned.
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<p>
Two of the pilots, General Benito Ebuen and Major Florencio Pobre, were apparently hurled forward, still strapped to their seats, against the engines. 

The first had his skull broken; the second had his head ripped off. A security officer, Major Felipe Nunag, seems to have survived the crash, though 

wounded in the head, and to have crawled out of the wreckage and some distance down the slope, quite a trip for a man who was dying and must have 

known it. His was one of the few bodies found intact.
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March 17, 1957: President Ramon Magsaysay died in a plane crash in Cebu