Taal Volcano located only 60 kilometers southeast of Manila is one of the more active volcanoes of the Philippines. Since 1572 it has had 30 eruptions, with perhaps those of 1754 and 1911 as being the most destructive. Accounts of eruptions prior to that of September 30, 1965, however, were mainly descriptive narratives of what transpired during the eruptions. There were hardly any mention made of precursory signs noticed before the events except for occasional reference to some macroseismic tremors preceding a few of the eruptions. Information, therefore, that would have been helpful in predicting its eruptions was sadly lacking until about a decade ago when the Philippine Commission on Volcanology, a government agency specially created to study the active volcanoes of the archipelago, started to employ surveillance techniques aimed at prognosticating the behavior of Taal.

Now after ten years of monitoring scientifically and methodolically the condition of this potentially destructive volcano, and after five eruptions within that period, it may be said that much is already known of its pre·eruption behavior as to allow Filipino volcanologists to reasonably predict its future eruptions.