The Bicol Region is a land where fire and water have written their stories across the landscape—volcanic peaks pierce the clouds while inland waters pool in their ancient craters and valleys, cradling secrets both seen and unseen. Here, lakes are not merely bodies of water but living characters in an ongoing narrative: they feed families, shelter endemic species found nowhere else on Earth, and serve as vessels for tales that blur the boundary between memory and myth.

From the crystalline shallows harboring the world’s smallest commercial fish to mist-shrouded crater lakes where spirits are said to guard the depths, these waters reflect not only sky and forest but the soul of Bicol itself—a place where the practical and the mystical flow together as naturally as river meeting sea.

Lake Buhi — Where the World’s Tiniest Fish Swim Through Legends

Nestled in a volcanic valley beneath the imposing silhouette of Mount Iriga (locally known as Mount Asog) and Mount Malinao, Lake Buhi spreads across 1,707 hectares like a jewel set in green velvet. The water shifts from deep emerald in its heart to pale jade near the reeds, its surface stippled with small islands that rise like the humped backs of sleeping giants. In the early morning, when mist still clings to the water and the air tastes of earth and growing things, fishermen glide out in bancas—outrigger canoes that barely disturb the glassy surface—to harvest what makes this lake legendary.

The sinarapan (Mistichthys luzonensis) is a creature of superlatives and fragility: the world’s smallest commercially harvested fish, rarely exceeding 1.5 centimeters in length, nearly transparent with a body delicate as spun sugar. Swimming in vast schools that shimmer like living silk beneath the surface, these fish seem more spirit than substance. Yet they sustain livelihoods and have become symbols of both natural wonder and ecological vulnerability, their populations fluctuating with the lake’s health. The lake also shelters other endemic species—the irin-irin, talusog, puyo, kotnag, burirawan, and hito (native catfish)—each playing its role in the intricate web of life beneath the surface.

The lake was born of catastrophe. In 1641, an earthquake caused a side of Mount Asog to collapse, and the resulting landslide created a natural dam that blocked nearby streams, filling the valley with water. Some say instead that it was Mount Asog’s eruption that carved this basin, the mountain’s fire giving way to stillness and depth. Either way, the lake stands as testimony to transformation—violence becoming peace, destruction becoming cradle.

But Lake Buhi cradles more than biology—it holds stories that ripple through generations. The most persistent legend tells of an enchanted town that once thrived where water now laps, a prosperous settlement whose people grew complacent in their wealth and forgot to pray. God, angered by their neglect, submerged the town beneath the rising waters as punishment. On certain moonlit nights, they say, when the water lies perfectly still and the world holds its breath, you can peer down through the depths and see the submerged town below: houses with their roofs intact, a church bell tower reaching upward.

This brings us to the tale of the golden Pamuntugan Bell—from the word buntog, meaning “to cast or drop into water.” When Moro pirates threatened Buhi, the villagers submerged their precious golden church bell in the enchanted lake rather than let it be stolen. The bell remains there still, guarded by enchanted beings. Every attempt to retrieve it has failed—the sky darkens, storms gather with thunder and lightning, driving away those who would disturb it. Some say only those who have truly loved can hear its sound, ringing faintly from the depths on quiet nights.

Whether truth or metaphor for loss, these tales transform the lake into something more than geography—it becomes a keeper of memories, a place where past and present exist in the same liquid space.

Yet Lake Buhi is also profoundly practical. Since 1952, it has served as the main water source for the National Power Corporation Hydro Electric Plant, generating an average of 2.8 megawatts. The National Irrigation Administration uses its waters to irrigate at least 100 square kilometers of Riconada towns downstream. The Tabao River connects it to Lake Baao, creating a linked system of waterways. Tilapia aquaculture dominates the contemporary economy, though issues persist—overfeeding, fish kills from high stocking densities, and poor water quality. Conservation efforts now focus on water quality monitoring, sustainable practices, and protected zones to help both fisheries and ecosystems recover.

The forest surrounding the lake shelters at least 25 bird species, including five endemics: the Philippine pygmy woodpecker, Philippine hanging parrot, black-naped monarch, elegant tit, and white-eared brown dove. Flying lizards, skinks, monitor lizards, civets, bats, and Philippine cynomolgus monkeys inhabit these slopes. Water hyacinth harvested from the lake becomes handicrafts in local hands. The shores tell their own stories: terraced rice paddies climb the surrounding slopes in green staircases, water buffalo wade in the shallows, and fishing villages have lived alongside these waters for generations, their fortunes rising and falling with the catch, their spiritual lives intertwined with the lake’s moods and mysteries.

The Hidden Sanctuaries — Manapao and Katugday

Three kilometers west of Lake Buhi’s main expanse, higher in the mountains of San Ramon at about 120 meters above sea level, two smaller sisters keep their own quiet vigil. Lakes Manapao and Katugday are mountain lakelets that few visitors see—accessible only by those willing to climb forest paths where moss grows thick on stones and the air grows cooler with each ascending step.

Lake Manapao is the smaller of the pair, spreading just 3.75 hectares across its mountain hollow, yet reaching depths of 7.6 meters—a modest surface concealing surprising depth, like a secret kept close. The water here possesses a clarity that the larger Lake Buhi has lost, and in this clarity swims the future of the sinarapan. This is the only natural habitat where a truly viable population of these transparent fish persists, where they breed and spawn without the pressures that have decimated their numbers elsewhere.

When scientists first confirmed that Manapao held the key to the sinarapan’s survival, the lakelet transformed from an obscure mountain pool to an ark, from forgotten water to hope made liquid. Now fishermen climb these slopes not to harvest but to gather—scooping up precious spawn in careful hands, carrying them down the mountain in buckets and jars, releasing them into Lake Buhi in an ancient rhythm reversed, children returning to parent, the small lake replenishing the large.

The municipality has declared both Manapao and Katugday as sinarapan sanctuaries, protected zones where fishing is forbidden, where the water belongs to the fish alone. Ten percent of Buhi’s development fund supports their maintenance—a tithe paid to the future, an investment in the possibility that the world’s smallest commercial fish might not disappear entirely from the world.

Lake Katugday sits nearby, another mountain tarn cradled in volcanic soil, another pool of stillness where the sinarapan find refuge. Together, these lakelets form the Buhi Wildlife Sanctuary, a constellation of small waters holding enormous significance. They are proof that sometimes the most important places are not the largest or most accessible, that salvation often hides in the margins, in the overlooked and underestimated.

Standing at the edge of Lake Manapao on a morning when mist fills the valley below and the main lake is invisible beyond the hills, you understand why these waters were chosen as sanctuaries. There is a quality of apartness here, a sense of being outside ordinary time. The forest presses close on all sides—tree ferns unfurling, birds calling from the canopy, the smell of rich earth and growing things. The water reflects not the open sky but the green ceiling of leaves, creating the impression of a secret room in the forest’s heart.

The sinarapan here swim as they did before tilapia and overfishing changed everything, as they did centuries ago when the only threats were natural predators and the seasons’ turning. In their nearly transparent bodies, moving in schools that catch and scatter light like living prisms, one sees not just a species but a promise—that what has been diminished can be restored, that care and patience might yet undo harm, and that small waters can hold large hopes.

Lake Bato — Where Waters Whisper and Boundaries Blur

Sprawling across 3,061 hectares between Camarines Sur and Albay, Lake Bato commands its place as the largest freshwater lake in Bicol and the seventh largest in the entire Philippines. Unlike Buhi’s contained emerald depths, Bato is a lake of moods and textures, its average depth of eight meters spread across extensive marshes and swamp forests. On calm days, it mirrors the sky so perfectly that egrets wading near the shore seem to walk on clouds; when winds sweep down from the mountains, the surface fractures into a million dancing fragments of light, and waves lap rhythmically against bancas tied to bamboo poles.

The lake that Bicolanos now call Bato was originally known as Sadit na Ranow by the natives who lived around its shores. A small settlement called Caliligno was founded here during pre-Spanish times, its people thriving on the lake’s rich resources and using it as their primary medium of travel. The settlement flourished and became the present-day town of Bato, formally established by decree of the Superior Government on February 15, 1758, when the Philippines was still under Spanish rule. The lake came to be named after the town that had grown from those ancient fishing camps.

The shoreline is a study in contrasts—gentle mudflats that squelch underfoot during low water, dense reed beds that rustle and sway with hidden life, patches of scrubby forest where kingfishers perch, and small fishing villages built on stilts, their houses leaning companionably against one another like old friends sharing secrets. Fishing nets dry on bamboo racks, children splash in the shallows, and the smell of grilling tilapia drifts across the water in the evening.

The lake drains into a tributary of the Bicol River, which enters the sea near Naga City. Its muddy clay bottom supports rich biodiversity—tilapia, carp, catfish, and the endangered sinarapan all make their home here. But in Bato, this tiny fish goes by a different name: the locals call it tabyos, while neighboring towns like Nabua, Baao, and Bula use the same term. Only in Buhi is it called sinarapan, literally meaning “caught by sarap.” The fish’s importance transcends nomenclature—it is endemic only to this region, a creature that exists nowhere else on Earth.

Lake Bato is a working lake. According to the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, 1,266 fisherfolk operate in these waters, using 1,245 boats and nearly 49,000 units of fishing gear. During peak catch months, a single fisher can haul up to 50 kilograms of tabyos in a day. The fish is sold fresh, dried, or fermented, feeding both local tables and distant markets.

The communities around Lake Bato celebrate this abundance in the Karanowan Fish-Tival, a vibrant festival derived from the local dialect word ranow, meaning lake. Participants dress in intricate fish-inspired costumes representing the diverse indigenous species of Lake Bato, transforming themselves into living emblems of the waters that sustain them.

But Lake Bato is also a place where the practical world of fish catch and daily survival brushes against something less easily explained. Fishermen trade stories in hushed tones: bancas found drifting far from shore with no one aboard, their oars neatly crossed; nets hauled up full of fish that no one can name, species that seem to exist only in these waters; the distant, impossible sound of chapel bells ringing from directions where no church has stood for decades, perhaps centuries.

These are not mere ghost stories told to frighten children—they are part of the lake’s identity, woven into the fabric of daily life as surely as the fishing schedule or the pattern of seasonal rains. In Bicolano mythology, the Bantay Tubig—water guardians—are believed to protect significant bodies of water. Some say Lake Bato has its own protective spirits, perhaps even naga, the half-serpent, half-human maidens who can cause floods if angered. The people here have learned to live with mystery, to accept that some waters carry more than fish, that the boundaries between the seen and unseen are more permeable here than in drier, more ordinary places.

The lake sustains life in tangible ways—tilapia and mudfish caught for markets, water birds that feed in the shallows, aquatic plants harvested for pig feed—but it also sustains imagination, keeping alive a relationship with the world that acknowledges forces beyond human understanding.

Lake Baao — The Shallow Sister

Lake Baao straddles the municipalities of Baao and Bula in Camarines Sur, spreading across 177 hectares of shallow water that averages only one meter deep. The Tabao River connects it to Lake Buhi, creating a vital link in the region’s watershed system. During the summer months of March through May, the lake’s surface area shrinks dramatically, leaving only about 60 hectares—one-third of its original size—as the water retreats to reveal mudflats and exposed lakebed.

This seasonal transformation shapes the rhythm of life here. Fisheries operate through the wet season, farming tilapia and hito in fish cages suspended in the deeper channels. The lake faces challenges familiar to shallow tropical waters: invasive janitor fish that outcompete native species, declining biodiversity, and the constant threat of unsustainable practices. The BASIL Program (Balik Sigla sa Ilog at Lawa—Restore Life to Rivers and Lakes) offers cash incentives for removing invasive species, a practical approach to conservation that acknowledges the economic realities of lakeside communities.

Lake Baao may lack the dramatic depths of its larger siblings, but it plays a crucial role in the interconnected system of Bicol’s waters, feeding the Bicol River that eventually meets the sea. It is a working landscape, modest but essential, where people have learned to adapt their livelihoods to the lake’s seasonal moods.

Lake Danao (Polangui, Albay) — The Crater’s Secret Heart

Hidden among the volcanic folds of Albay, nestled between Mount Malinao and Mount Masaraga, Lake Danao reveals itself only to those willing to seek it. The journey there winds through narrow trails that climb and dip across jungle-clad hillsides, a thirty-minute hike through carabao trails and abaca plantations, past ferns as tall as a person and moss-covered rocks that glisten with perpetual moisture. Better bring a guide—the paths are not always clear, and the forest has a way of turning strangers around.

Then, suddenly, the forest opens, and there it lies: a crater lake of startling green, its surface so still it seems painted rather than liquid. The lake sits in an amphitheater of forested slopes rising steeply on all sides like the walls of a natural cathedral. Cloud shadows drift across the water, and wisps of mist cling to the surrounding peaks even on sunny afternoons, as though the place generates its own weather, its own atmosphere separate from the world beyond.

Lake Danao sits about 500 meters above sea level, some 20 kilometers from Polangui town proper. The silence here has texture—not the absence of sound but a living quiet, filled with the soft voices of hidden birds, the whisper of leaves, the occasional plop of a fish breaking the surface. The water is clear enough to reveal submerged logs and rocks near the shore, and the lakebed is home to eels and other freshwater fish. Even the rare tabyos—the world’s smallest fish—is cultured here, though whether wild populations persist remains uncertain.

Lake Danao is modest in size, but it possesses an outsized presence. Standing at its edge, you feel witnessed by the landscape, as though the volcanic crater that birthed these waters retains some awareness, some memory of fire becoming lake. The lush and verdant vegetation surrounds it completely, creating a haven that feels separate from ordinary time.

Few people visit regularly—the lake’s remoteness ensures it remains largely undiscovered, a secret shared mainly by locals from nearby barangays who occasionally fish its waters or come to collect firewood from the surrounding forest. This isolation has preserved both its ecological integrity and its atmosphere of mystery, making it feel like a place out of time, where one might encounter not just nature but something older, something that remembers when fire still burned where water now lies still.

Lake Bulusan — The Volcano’s Perfect Mirror

At the southeastern slope of Mount Bulusan, one of Luzon’s most active volcanoes, Lake Bulusan spreads in an irregular oval 635 meters above sea level—a liquid eye reflecting the mountain’s majesty. The lake spans 27.6 hectares with a depth of 33 meters, occupying the depression between two lava flow lobes that abut a hill on the volcano’s southeastern slope. Some believe it was formed by tectonic damming; others say it might have been a crater itself. Dense rainforest cloaks the slopes that rise sharply toward the volcano’s summit, a living wall of green punctuated by bamboo groves that lean gracefully over the water’s edge and giant ferns that unfurl their fronds like the fingers of ancient gods.

Morning is the lake’s most enchanted hour. As dawn breaks, mist rises from the water in ghostly columns, obscuring the boundary between lake and air, between liquid and vapor. The surrounding forest emerges gradually from this white veil—first the bamboo in silhouette, then the broader trees, finally the volcanic slopes themselves, their contours softened and made mysterious by the drifting fog. The water during these hours appears almost silver, catching and holding the early light like molten metal poured into the earth’s cupped hands.

By midday, when the mist has burned away, the lake reveals its true character: water that shifts between green and blue depending on the light, reflecting the sky but also suggesting great depth. The waterbed is rocky and sandy in places, muddy in others. The surface occasionally shivers with ripples that appear without wind—a phenomenon that locals attribute to the presence of guardian spirits, entities tied to the volcano itself, watchers who stir the waters as they pass beneath.

The lake shelters a delicate ecosystem adapted to its unique conditions—endemic fish species found nowhere else, birds that nest in the forest and feed in the shallows, mammals moving through the canopy, and even beehives hanging from branches. The water is cold, fed by underground springs connected to the volcanic system, and the surrounding rainforest maintains a microclimate of perpetual dampness and rich biological diversity.

Lake Bulusan exists not alone but as part of a greater whole: the Bulusan Volcano Natural Park, declared a National Park in 1935 and encompassing 3,673 hectares of protected rainforest. The park features Mount Bulusan itself, two other peaks known as Sharp Peak and Hormahan, and three crater lakes—Bulusan Lake, Lake Aguingay, and Black Bird’s Lake at the summit. After rehabilitation and restoration, the park reopened to the public in 2022 with a new Eco-Tourism Center.

The park supports nearby communities through its forest products, watershed functions, and recreational values. The lower slopes serve as agricultural land. It provides water for several communities and irrigation for surrounding farms and offers natural protection from calamities such as typhoons and flash floods.

Higher up the mountain, at about 1,100 meters above sea level, Lake Aguingay appears and disappears depending on weather conditions—an intermittent lake that can expand to three times the area of Bulusan Lake during extreme rainfall. The name aguingay refers to a resilient, aggressive upland grass found in extreme conditions, highlighting the lake’s challenging and wild environment. This is where mountaineers establish base camp before the final climb to Bulusan’s peak. It is an excellent spot for birdwatching, with sightings of endangered species like the Philippine hornbill.

At the volcano’s summit lies Black Bird’s Lake, a tiny crater lake of just 0.04 hectares—a small mirror reflecting the sky from the mountain’s crown.

For the communities of Bulusan, Lake Bulusan is both a resource and a symbol. It provides water and fish, but it also represents the volcano’s dual nature—destructive fire transformed into life-giving water, danger distilled into beauty. To stand at Lake Bulusan’s edge is to witness this transformation, to understand viscerally how the landscape here is never just one thing but always a dialogue between opposing forces.

The trail that circles the lake takes roughly an hour to walk, winding through a forest where strangler figs embrace host trees and orchids bloom in the canopy. At various points, wooden viewing platforms extend over the water, offering perspectives that shift with each angle: the volcano towering behind, the forest pressing close, the water spreading outward like a pool of sky fallen to earth.

The legend of this place runs deep in Bicolano memory. Si Bulusan nan si Agingay tells of the brave warrior Bulusan and the beautiful maiden Agingay, who lived happily until a jealous rival named Casiguran framed Bulusan for murder. Condemned, Bulusan was eaten by the giant bird Mampak. Casiguran then forced the grief-stricken Agingay to throw her newborn son into the fiery volcano. When the villagers discovered Casiguran’s treachery, they threw him into the volcano as well. Agingay, who had already taken her own life, was carried down the mountain by villagers whose tears, mixing with Bulusan’s blood, formed two lakes on the volcano’s slopes—one named after Bulusan, the other after Agingay.

In other versions, the Mampak bird itself, after being killed, bled all over the mountain slopes, and its blood eventually formed Lake Bulusan. The stories shift with each telling, but their essence remains: love and loss, betrayal and consequence, tears becoming lakes, tragedy becoming landscape.

Lake Irosin — Where Ancient Craters Meet Modern Tourism

Located in Barangay Patag, Lake Irosin was once called Danao or Kamambugan by local residents—danao being the Bicol word for lake, and kamambugan an archaic term referring to a species of tree that remains abundant around its shores. Covering 4.6 hectares with a circumference of 1.9 kilometers, the lake formed as a crater during the caldera period of Irosin’s volcanic history.

Local lore tells of a tornado carving a deep basin that eventually filled with rainwater, while geological accounts point to the ancient volcanic crater. These dual narratives—mythic and scientific—mirror the layered identity of Irosin itself: a town shaped by nature and nurtured by storytelling.

For many years, the lake served as a place where farmers would bring their carabaos to dip and cool their bodies—lab-ugan in Bicol. Occasionally, local residents would fish in its waters. Now, set amid tranquil lush vegetation with a magnificent view of Bulusan Volcano as a backdrop, Lake Irosin has transformed into an enchanting destination where visitors commune with nature. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has identified endemic flora and fauna here, and plans include making the place a campsite for Boy Scouts and an on-site classroom for educational tours.

The lake offers kayaking and boating, with amenities including cottages, a function hall, and an administration building. Lanes encircle the lake for joggers. A floating house and a tree house with a view deck provide unique perspectives. The lake proudly hosts the first and only zipline in the province.

Lake Irosin also serves as a jump-off point to nearby waterfalls—Naglahao Falls, Malungoy-lungoy Falls, and Hidden Falls—as well as to white-water rafting at the Solihan River and spelunking in at least three caves and tunnels near the area. Local guides, members of the Patag Danao Lake Fishers Association, offer insights into the lake’s history and biodiversity. The lake sits only four kilometers from the Irosin población, making it readily accessible.

Nag-Aso Boiling Lake — Where Earth’s Fire Meets Water

Among Bicol’s many gems stands the three-hectare thermal lake called Nag-Aso, bordered by lush green fields and abundant trees in Manito, Albay. In Bicol language, nag-aso means steaming or boiling—an apt description for this surreal body of water. Local residents and visitors boil eggs on the lake’s surface, watching them cook to hardness in less than ten minutes. The hot spring feeding the lake reaches temperatures of about 100 degrees Celsius, located in the northeastern corner where steam rises in continuous veils.

Nag-Aso is a freshwater pool with green waters, colored by sulfur oxide emitted from Earth’s natural vent in the Pocdol mountain range straddling the boundary between Albay and Sorsogon. With water at boiling temperature, no living creature—no fish, no plants—inhabits the lake. In some areas, pools bubble and burst with steam. During high tide, the basin is inundated with seawater from Albay Gulf, yet the lake maintains its show of steam and bubbles, a testament to the volcanic heat beneath.

It is glassy on top, deadly below—a place that demonstrates nature’s power to create beauty and danger in the same breath. Also located in Manito is Inang Maharang Boiling Lake, about 1,000 square meters of boiling and bubbling springs in Barangay Nagotgot.

 

Lake Sumlang — Where Mayon Watches Over Quiet Waters

In Camalig, Albay, Lake Sumlang spreads across seven hectares of the fourteen-hectare complex owned and managed by the Napa family, owners of Natural Carpet Industries, one of the region’s largest producers and exporters of abaca products. The lake is good for boating, fishing, and picnicking, with culinary demonstrations and paluto services available. But what makes Sumlang truly special is its view: the perfect cone of Mayon Volcano rises in the background, its symmetry reflected in the lake’s calm surface.

Guests can enjoy meals at Socorro’s Lakeside Restaurant and Grill, then glide to the middle of the lake atop a bamboo raft—the perfect place for that Instagram shot of Mayon. Live demonstrations of pinangat cooking and abaca weaving take place in nipa-thatched cottages along the walkway. The souvenir shop stocks colorful handwoven bags, intricate native baskets, and pili nut delicacies.

Lake Sumlang is a curated experience, a working landscape where tourism and agriculture intertwine, where visitors can touch the traditions that shape Bicol while gazing at the volcano that has shaped its geography and imagination for millennia.

Lakes of the Caramoan Peninsula

The rugged Caramoan Peninsula in Camarines Sur shelters several small lakes whose relative isolation has preserved their pristine character. Lake Manipis covers 1.02 hectares, while Lake Tayak spans 1.40 hectares. These modest bodies of water exist as part of Caramoan’s dramatic landscape of limestone cliffs, hidden lagoons, and dense forest—a terrain that has made the peninsula famous among travelers seeking untouched beauty.

Lake Danao (Batuan, Masbate) — Where Gentle Waters Meet Daily Life

Far different in character from its mountainous namesakes, Lake Danao in Batuan, Masbate spreads across 1.66 hectares of gentler terrain—an oval of calm water surrounded by rolling hills dotted with coconut palms and small farms. Where other Bicol lakes hide in volcanic craters or forest-shrouded valleys, this Danao sits openly in the landscape, accessible and welcoming.

The water here runs clearer than in most lakes, allowing visibility several meters down in the shallower areas. The bottom is visible—sand and pebbles, occasional fish darting between submerged plants, the wavering shadows of clouds passing overhead. The shoreline slopes gently, making it easy to wade in, and the banks are lined with nipa palms and bamboo that create natural pavilions of shade.

Local families come here on weekends and holidays, spreading mats on the grassy banks, launching small bancas for leisurely paddles, allowing children to splash in the shallows under watchful eyes. The lake serves the community as both a resource and recreation—fish for the table, water for irrigation, and a space for simple pleasure, for the kind of ordinary joy that sustains life as surely as food and shelter.

The folklore here is subtler, less about dramatic apparitions than about the lake’s gentle presence in daily life—the way certain spots seem luckier for fishing, the preference for launching boats in a particular direction, the understanding that the lake has moods and should be respected even as it’s enjoyed. This is mystery domesticated but not eliminated, the sacred made familiar without losing its essential character.

The surrounding landscape tells the story of agricultural Masbate: coconut plantations marching over hills, carabao grazing in cleared fields, small sari-sari stores near the access road selling snacks and cold drinks. Lake Danao exists as part of this working landscape, beautiful but also practical, valued for what it provides rather than hidden away as pristine wilderness.

Lake Pulog — Summit Waters of the Pocdol Range

At the summit of Mount Pulog in the Pocdol Mountains range near Bacon, Sorsogon, Lake Pulog sits in its two-hectare crater, a pocket of water at the top of the world. The Pocdol Mountains—also known as Mount Pocdol, the Pocdol Hills, or the Bacon-Manito Volcanic Group—are stratovolcanoes straddling the boundary between Albay and Sorsogon, part of the same volcanic system that created Nag-Aso’s boiling waters far below.

Mount Pulog requires a three-hour hike from Barangay Sta. Cruz in Bacon, 13 kilometers north of downtown Sorsogon City. The summit offers stunning panoramic views of Albay Gulf and Sorsogon Bay, with Bulusan Volcano rising to the east and Rapu Rapu Island visible across the water. Lake Pulog rewards those who make the climb with its quiet presence—a crater lake that has witnessed the sunrise over the gulf countless thousands of times, that reflects not just the sky but the history of fire that shaped these mountains.

The Tapestry of Water, Life, and Story

Bicol’s lakes are not a single thing, but a constellation of experiences, each body of water distinct in character yet connected by common threads. They are volcanic children, most of them, born from the same geological processes that built the region’s mountains and continue to shape its terrain. They are ecological treasures, sheltering species that exist nowhere else, maintaining habitats that support biodiversity from microscopic organisms to migratory birds.

But more than biology or geology, these lakes are cultural landscapes—places where human communities have built their lives and imaginations for generations. The stories told about these waters reveal how people understand their relationship with nature: not as separate observers but as participants in systems larger than themselves, subject to forces both physical and metaphysical.

The sinarapan of Lake Buhi—called tabyos in Lake Bato—teaches vulnerability and interdependence, showing how the smallest creatures can be most significant, how an ecosystem’s health reveals itself in its most delicate components. The wandering boats and phantom bells of Lake Bato speak to the persistence of memory, the way landscapes hold traces of what came before. The mist-wreathed crater lakes—Danao, Bulusan, Irosin, Pulog—remind us that beauty and danger often share the same address, that transformation is ongoing, that fire always sleeps beneath the water.

In Bicolano mythology, these relationships take form as beings: the Bakunawa, the giant serpent or naga that guards the ocean’s depths, originally a beautiful water diwata consumed by jealousy who tried to eat the seven moons, causing eclipses with each attempt. The naga and magindara who guard both salt and freshwater, half-serpent maidens who can cause floods if angered. The siyokoy, scaly mermen who dwell in freshwater and drown those who trespass. The Bantay Tubig—water guardians—who protect significant bodies of water.

These are not mere superstitions but frameworks for understanding relationship and responsibility. They encode ecological wisdom in narrative form: respect the water, take only what you need, remember that you are not alone in these places, that other presences—whether you call them spirits or simply acknowledge the lake’s own aliveness—deserve consideration.

Standing on any of these shores, gliding across their surfaces in a banca, or simply listening to the stories whispered in lakeside villages, one enters a space where the ordinary and extraordinary coexist. Here, catching fish for dinner and respecting unseen guardians are not contradictory activities but parts of a coherent whole—a worldview that accommodates both practical knowledge and imaginative possibility.

These are waters that sustain life in multiple ways: they feed bodies and spirits, support livelihoods and legends, offer both resource and reflection. They power hydroelectric plants and irrigate rice paddies. They host festivals and fishing competitions. They cool carabaos and cook eggs. They shelter the world’s smallest fish and reflect the country’s most perfect volcano. They serve as jump-off points for adventure and destinations for contemplation.

In a world increasingly divided between the measurable and the meaningful, the scientific and the spiritual, Bicol’s lakes suggest that such divisions are artificial, that water has always known how to be many things at once—mundane and mysterious, familiar and frightening, mirror and window, memory and moment, utility and wonder, geography and story.

Header photo: Lake Buhi with Mt. Asog in the background (credit: Taga Bicol Ako FB page, a popular blogger based in Bicol). Content based on various LGU (provincial, municipality and tourism office), BFAR and Phil. Atlas websites and social media pages.

About the author

RAUL F. BORJAL, known as “Rolly” to his family and friends, was born in Naga City, Camarines Sur, and now resides in Parañaque City, Metro Manila. An alumnus of both Ateneo de Naga University and Ateneo de Manila University, he held senior executive roles in several domestic and multinational corporations, culminating in his retirement as Vice President and Corporate Secretary of a Filipino-owned group of companies.

He is married to the former Wenifreda D. Parma, a cum laude graduate of Ateneo de Naga University, and together they have four children. Rolly is also a co-founder and a member of the editorial board of Dateline Ibalon.