Yesterday, my friend and I set out on a long drive in search of a scenic adventure in Buluan, Maguindanao del Sur. We imagined sweeping views of the lake, evoking similar images to Taal or Lake Sebu. From General Santos City we drove to Tacurong, crossed into Maguindanao del Sur, and entered its capital town of Buluan, the home to the vast and storied Buluan Lake.
Crossing the Buluan River bridge, we were struck by the unexpected sight of a promenade on both sides: red-bricked walkways lined with colorful buntings and banners, a mosque rising beside it, lending the place a quaint, almost picturesque provincial charm. Curious to find the best view of the lake, we asked around town. Vendors along the highway sold bundles of dried tilapia, a quiet reminder of the lake’s bounty. An old woman kindly pointed us down a cemented road that, she said, would lead us to the lake and on toward the “Landing Fish” -- a port we assumed to be the hub where fisherfolk brought in their daily tilapia catch.
For several minutes, we followed the narrow cemented road, which looked as though it had only recently been laid. On both sides stretched what we first thought were lush rice fields, their greenery half-submerged in shallow water that shimmered under the sun. It wasn’t until we began to see the familiar sight of tilapia spread out to dry that we realized we had, in fact, reached the lake itself. What we had mistaken for paddies were not rice fields at all, but thick growths of aquatic weeds thriving in the fertile waters of Buluan Lake, the third largest lake in Mindanao.
After a few hundred meters, we reached a small settlement. On both sides of the road stood shanties and the occasional sari-sari store, their stilts and walls half-submerged in knee-deep water. The lake had crept into daily life, blurring the boundary between land and shore. Soon, even the highway itself disappeared beneath the lake’s surface. We hesitated at first, uncertain if the road ahead was still safe. But then a few tricycles rattled past us, followed by a multi-cab and even a battered pick-up truck, all forging ahead without pause. Taking courage from them, we pressed on too, equal parts anxious and exhilarated by what might lie further down this watery road.
So we drove further on, slowly and cautiously. Along the way, we saw children splashing in the floodwaters, laughing as they bathed; adults soaping themselves and rinsing off with a tabo; old men brushing their teeth; women cleaning fish. All in the same water that lapped at their homes. As doctors, my friend and I couldn’t help but wonder about the illnesses that must quietly thrive in this place.
The flood bore all the signs of permanence. People had already adapted: narrow stilt bridges connected doorsteps to the road, and wooden canoes were moored outside houses like everyday vehicles. On the walls, faint lines marked past water levels, reminders of the ebb and swell of a lake that refused to recede. In some places, clusters of bright pink snail eggs clung to concrete walls, adding an almost delicate splash of color to the gray watermark of endurance. In some areas, between half-submerged shanties, lotuses drift calmly on the water -- a quiet proof that this flood is not a passing disaster, but a long-term way of life
Slowly, we inched along the submerged road, mindful of the car’s wheels, worried it might slip off the concrete shoulder, more worried still that we might hit one of the toddlers swimming freely in the water. It was 11 a.m., the sun already high, yet the whole community’s children seemed to be out there, splashing and laughing, floating in styrofoam boxes they had turned into makeshift boats. Many of them were completely naked, their faces smeared with mud, their bellies sticking out, conjuring images of Ascaris and hookworms. And yet they were happy, oblivious to the dangers of the flood that felt like a playground to them. The same waters that gave them so much joy might also bring the disease that could one day kill them. For a moment, it almost looked like play, until the question pressed itself on us: why were they here, in the floodwaters, instead of in school?
A few hundred meters further, our question was answered. On the right side of the road stood the community elementary school, submerged in mud and flood, its walls rotting, its corrugated green DepEd roof sagging in perpetual disrepair. It loomed like a haunted building, silent except for the distant shrieks of children swimming far away. Inside, there was no floor to be seen, only water, and not a soul in sight.
The flood had not spared the rest of the community’s lifelines. The mosques were submerged too, along with the government daycare center and the madrasa. Faded Arabic words still clung to the walls, faint reminders of the faith and learning these places once sheltered, before the deluge came and stayed.
Further ahead, a group of children, mostly girls, paddled cheerfully on a dugout canoe that had drifted across the road and blocked our way. Two of them balanced on its narrow edge, then leapt into the flood with shrieks of laughter, sending up great splashes as if the water were a playground. Their joy seemed unshaken, even though just a few meters away an old man, draped in a malong, squatted by the water, likely relieving his bowels into the same lake that both sustained and entrapped them, the same waters that had come to define their lives.
Up ahead, the road blurred into haze. We could no longer trace its outline; the horizon stretched before us, and it all seemed to be water. Slowly, we inched closer to the laughing children. Realizing we meant to pass, they pushed their canoe aside, clearing the way.
I rolled down my window, smiled, and asked, “Naa pa bay dalan? Pwede pa mi mo derecho?” The girls smiled shyly. One of the older ones hesitated, then gathered the courage to answer: “Derecho lang. Kaya lang man sa sakyanan.” She broke into a wide grin, revealing broken teeth, a smile as bright and fragile as the waters that had swallowed the road.
I was too afraid to turn back, so I clung to the girl’s assurance that the “Fish Landing” was still ahead, and no harm would come to us if we kept going, careful not to slip off the narrow road. So we pressed on, inch by inch, my hands tight on the wheel. My friend, sensing my unease, finally broke the silence: maybe we had already seen enough.
A few meters ahead, beside a small mosque, stood a concrete house. In front of it was a pick-up truck, its wheels sunk halfway into the water. To me it looked like salvation, a shallow spot where we could make a U-turn. Slowly, cautiously, I steered us around. Relief flooded in as we faced the way back.
We continued our drive back, our senses battered again by the same scenes we had passed earlier. My friend occasionally raised his phone to take photos, mostly of the place, never of the people. To capture their faces felt like a sin. It would have been poverty turned into spectacle, their lives reduced to images for our own consumption.
In that moment, we realized we were intruders: unwelcome outsiders peering into lives already burdened, as if they were specimens on display. To frame their hardship for our own record would have been an act of quiet cruelty. And so we chose to remember, not to capture.
We drove back in silence, each lost in thought. The scenes we passed were the same: the rhythms of daily life unfolding along the flooded road. Simple, ordinary acts: cooking, bathing, washing, waiting. Women gossiping. An old woman with a malong wrapped around her sagging body, peeling corn. And yet to us, they felt like an onslaught, not because of what people were doing, but because of the stark poverty in which they were forced to do it.
These were ordinary lives in an extraordinary setting. A setting so poor, so stripped down, that the mundane itself became almost nefarious, like a quiet indictment of a world that allowed it to persist.
Up ahead, the road stretched on, and we began to notice the water receding. Patches of dry land appeared here and there, breaking the monotony of the flood. On some segments of the concrete road, tilapia lay drying under the sun -- a quiet sign that we had finally left the waters behind. A sign that, at least for us, we had departed hell.
“Are you still up for some hiking? I don’t think I have the energy anymore,” my friend said somberly.
“Me too. Should we still see the rest of Maguindanao del Sur?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I think we’ve had enough for today. It’s hard to process what we just saw.”
On our way back to Koronadal, we crossed the Buluan River Bridge once more. The promenade greeted us again: red-bricked walkways, colorful buntings, fluttering banners. But this time it felt different. We realized it was all part of a vast machinery of deception, a way to cover up deep misery with superficial images of beauty and peace.
From my rearview mirror, I looked back at the lake, at the lives afloat in its waters. Why were they even allowed to stay in such a place? Why did they choose to? Perhaps because they had nowhere else to go. Perhaps because this life, in all its simplicity, its fragility, and sickening poverty, is all they have.
I left Buluan with anger burning in my chest. Anger at the shameless corruption of our government, which allows places like this to exist and fester. Anger at how human indignity has been normalized, buried in silence, until nobody dared to tell these people’s stories. Had we never gone there, we would never have known they existed.
But the world should know. The world should share this anger. Not the kind that divides, but the kind that unites. An anger so fierce it shames corrupt politicians into facing the evils they commit, the evils that reduce people to such a painful, sobering existence.
And yet, I carried with me a fragile kind of hope: that this unwelcome outsider, telling these stories and naming these injustices, might one day stir someone, anyone, to change what we saw. That someday, the laughter of the children of Buluan Lake, who now find joy in dirty, foul-smelling water, will no longer be drowned by the stench of poverty, but will rise from a place where they can finally live, and thrive, with the dignity they have long been denied.
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