CALUMPIT, BULACAN–The shouts of wares and prices rang from the rows of makeshift stalls that encroached on the road plying the town market.

A tindera invited passers-by to try her tilapia, while another wrapped bananas in rice paper and watched over the turon deep-frying in a pan. The prices were largely the same, but few stopped to buy.

Paces away, hundreds of people crisscrossed the kilometer-long pool of water covering this basin-like side of the MacArthur Highway.
Mass of people walking flooded Calumpit Bulacan town center October 2011. Shot by Chito Concepcion.

Traveling north to Apalit, Pampanga or south to Malolos, most trudged knee-deep in the water, recurrent images alluding to the crossing of the Red Sea.

People who preferred themselves dry paid at least 20 pesos for a seat in canoes docked there like jeepneys, barkers calling the shots. Also for rent: an air bed. Motorcyclists could hire a boat or a pedicab to ferry their bikes for close to 500 pesos.

Those who wouldn’t afford the ride could also hitch one on the empty dirt trucks employed to carry many over still-impassable throughways in Central Luzon.

After 5 days, the flood had not subsided from either the road or the real kiosks of the vendors in the pamilihang-bayan. More so in the 22 barangays submerged in this town.