The mark of an old pueblo in the Philippines is the location of the town church and the municipal hall. The Spanish colonizers designed it that way: the church was placed as the literal center of each town with the house of government built across it. When the Americans came, they started building concrete water tanks near the town centers, finally sealing the trio of marks of old towns in the country: the church, the town hall and the water tank.

Of the three iconic structures that mark the old towns, the water tank is the one that is usually rendered obsolete by the passage of time. Centralized water districts have already taken the helm of water distribution, and in most cases, the water tanks were either just left in disrepair or repurposed to something else.

The latter was what happened with the water tank of Cagayan de Oro, which was transformed into a museum. Completed in 1922, the CDO water tank was retrofitted to serve as the City Museum of Cagayan de Oro and Heritage Studies in 2008. Located right beside the Archbishop’s Residence and fronting Gaston Park, the CDO Museum hosts occasional themed displays and permanent ones, utilizing the administration office area at the foot of the water tank and the floors of the tank itself to house the exhibitions.

The museum entrance is located at a side entrance right beside the tower. In the museum office, we were greeted by the friendly staff who requested that we register ourselves in a logbook. It felt good having to write our address in the logbook. Malolos City, Bulacan—and we were in Mindanao. After the registration, we immediately saw the first exhibit Habi at Haligi.

The first exhibition highlights the role that weaving and architecture played in the histo-cultural development of Cagayan de Oro City. The former echoes other places in Mindanao that have strong weaving traditions, such as Basilan and Sulu.

Habi at Haligi. Weaving strength and sustainability in architecture.

It was a small exhibition, and after a quick view of the weaved items and photos of old buildings that withstood the test of time, we were guided to the main museum located inside the water tank.

The first floor was dedicated to the indigenous people of Cagayan de Oro and their tradition, culture and way of life from pre-colonial times. The sintra board displays provided a perfect visual aid to understand the displays encased in glass: archeological finds such as broken pottery and porcelain, indigenous tools, and gold dusts in a pan—a homage to the name Cagayan de Oro, river of gold.

We went our way to the second level of the museum where artifacts related to the Spanish colonial rule and the Philippine Revolution were on display. The transition was subtle yet sublime. From the precolonial way of life from the first floor going up to the colonial period and the revolution on the second, the exhibits showed the transition in time forward and the reversal back to freedom at the same time.

From the second floor gallery where we had a visual appreciation of the memorabilia of the Spanish Era and the Philippine Revolution that ended it, we moved our way to the third and final level of the museum. The third level is was dedicated to the city’s contemporary history which includes the Filomeno M. Bautista Gallery, in memory of a Cagayanon educator and author who is credited for Glimpses of Mindanao—The Land of Promise and The Bautista Manuscript of the Philippine Revolution in Misamis Province, 1900-1901.

The third and final floor was also the end of our upward spiral travel back in time in Cagayan de Oro. The fact that the city museum was inside a water tank was enhanced by the manner by which the exhibitions were arranged: you move up a level, you move forward an era. From the perceived serenity of the ancient and indigenous time to the portrayed tumult of the colonial and revolutionary period, all the way to the more recent accounts of contemporary history, the city museum of Cagayan de Oro perfectly encapsulated time in a water tank.

We knew we were not done yet even when the time to go has come. After seeing history from the Cagayanon’s point-of-view, we realized that we were making history ourselves, for ourselves. There we stood in a water tank in Cagayan de Oro, swimming not in water but in the eternal flows of time, making memories that may not make it to any museum but made their way to the core of our souls. Our stop in the water tank museum was not just a stop in our itinerary. It was a stop in time, a little diversion from the linear way forward, allowing us to step back, appreciate the beauty of the past, immerse ourselves in the wonders of the present, and stand in wonder about what tomorrow has in store for us.