DAVAO, Philippines -- Dogs howled, cocks crowed and pregnant women rinsed their hair in rice water today when a total solar eclipse darkened the skies over the Philippines for the first time in 33 years.
President Corazon Aquino and Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos were among the estimated 20,000 sight-seers and scientists who jammed the cities of Davao and General Santos for the event, seen as a total eclipse only in the nation's extreme southern tip and parts of Indonesia.
Aquino was also expected to meet with local officials in the war-torn southern island of Mindanao, where troops were on full alert to prevent any disruption by the Moslem separatist Moro National Liberation Front.
The phenomenon was seen as a partial eclipse around the rest of the 7,000-island archipelago, where millions of people poured out of homes and offices to squint at the sun through sunglasses, old X-rays and bits of photographic negative, or even with bare eyes in spite of warnings about the hazards to their eyesight.
It was the first total eclipse seen in the Philippines since 1955. Another is not expected until the year 2042.
In Davao, where gunfire, firecrackers, church bells and police whistles marked the beginning of the three-minute eclipse at 9:06 a.m., overcast skies protected the eyes of viewers but partially obscured the view.
'But we felt the eclipse wind, that cold wind from the southwest, heard groups of dogs howl and cocks crow and saw chickens roost,' said retired weather specialist Alejandro Tantoco as quoted by the PNA, the official Philippine News Service.
Eclipse watchers shouted, clapped their hands and stamped their feet as they do at New Years, prompting the PNA to compare the behavior to the way residents acted when they learned that former president Ferdinand Marcos had fled the country two years ago.
In the northern resort city of Baguio, pregnant women rinsed their hair with water dripped from burned rice straws because of a belief that their children would be born deformed if they did not, the PNA said.
Elsewhere in the north, it is believed pregnant women can avoid the ill effects of an eclipse by taking to their beds and covering their tops with a black umbrella.
The eclipse 'is a clear reminder from God for mankind to repent its sins,' said Theresa Teopengco, a government worker in the northern province of Pampanga, the site of the U.S. Clark Air Base. Women in the area could be seen reciting the rosary.
Municipal employee Joselito Garcia was quoted saying there was 'fun, frolic and fear,' in the northern city of San Fernando, La Union province, where traffic came to a halt as motorists poured out of their cars to watch the phenomenon.
Residents of the province had stockpiled candles, food and fuel because of rumors there would be three days and nights of darkness culminating with the end of the world.
Tourism officials said more than 16,000 domestic and foreign tourists plus another 4,000 Philippine science students flocked south for the eclipse, jamming every available room in Davao, 650 miles south of Manila.
About half of them continued another 60 miles by road to the city of General Santos, where the eclipse remained total for a few moments longer.
