Place to visit
Balaan Bukid Shrine
At a glance
- Typical duration
- 1.5 to 2 hours, including the climb
- Entrance fee
- No permit is needed and no entrance fee has been reported (check locally).
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Visiting in November
- Good
- Types
- Church, Trail, Viewpoint
- Area
- Barangay Balcon Melliza, Jordan (trail from Barangay Hoskyn)
- Coordinates
- 10.663400, 122.566400
A hilltop shrine with a 60-foot cross above the Iloilo Strait, reached by a 1.7 km pilgrim path with the Stations of the Cross.
Photos
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Photo: Tony Castley, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (resized) -
Photo: Patrickroque01, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (resized) -
Photo: Patrickroque01, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (resized)
Balaan Bukid, Hiligaynon for 'holy mountain', rises about 170 metres above the Iloilo Strait. A chapel and a 60-foot concrete cross were raised on its summit for the Marian Year of 1954 and completed in 1956, and the 1.7 km path up is lined with the fourteen Stations of the Cross.
The climb is short but steady, with some steep and rocky stretches; allow 30 to 45 minutes on foot. On Good Friday thousands of pilgrims follow the Pagtaltal sa Guimaras, the Passion re-enactment that ends on the hill. On other days it is quiet, with wide views over the strait toward Iloilo City.