Antequera Cottage Industry

Overview

Antequera municipality in northwestern Bohol is widely known for its basket-weaving tradition — a cottage industry producing rattan, buri palm, and bamboo baskets that has been practised in the municipality for generations. The Antequera Cottage Industry is recorded in the Bohol Provincial Tourism Office inventory under Industrial Tourism / Arts & Craft, reflecting this weaving heritage as a tourism draw.

Antequera hosts the Basket Festival, an annual event celebrating the weaving tradition, which suggests the cottage industry is more than a minor side activity — it is central to the municipality’s cultural identity and economic life. Visitors can typically observe weavers at work and purchase baskets directly from producers.

Basket weaving in Antequera is documented as having begun in Barangay Bicahan in 1911, when founding families started producing the Bukag — a large, wide-mouthed basket originally built as a farm tool for carrying rice seedlings. Production expanded significantly in the 1960s with new designs, and by the 1990s the municipality’s weavers had developed more than 500 distinct basket designs, using bamboo, banban (Donax canniformis), buri (Corypha utan), nito (Lygodium circinnatum), and uway (rattan, Calamus rotang) as raw materials. The National Cottage Industries Development Authority (NACIDA) and local government provided training and mechanized tools that helped the products reach export markets. In May 2025, the National Museum of the Philippines–Bohol hosted “Bukag: Exploring the Craft, Heritage, and Sustainability of Boholano Basketry” during National Heritage Month, with lectures, hands-on workshops led by local weavers, and a month-long exhibition. [TO ENRICH: number of active weavers or workshops today, and current approximate prices — not found in available sources.]

Location

Antequera municipality, northwestern Bohol. Antequera is approximately 19–25 km northwest of Tagbilaran City (sources vary). Basket weaving is documented as having originated in Barangay Bicahan. The Inambakan Cave & Spring is also within the municipality.

Getting There

From Tagbilaran, buses depart from the Dao integrated bus terminal toward Antequera — approximately 45–60 minutes’ travel time. The municipality is also reachable from Tubigon to the north.

Practical Info

Since weaving is done at individual weavers’ homes rather than a single production site, the municipal government runs an organized Basket Weaving Experience Tour: meeting point is the Municipal Tourism Information and Display Center, Poblacion, Antequera, Bohol, available Monday–Friday, 8:00 AM–5:00 PM, priced at PHP 400 per person (excludes transportation to weaving sites; a tricycle costs approximately PHP 200 more), open to ages 10 and up, and requiring booking at least 3 days in advance through the municipal tourism office. Basket purchases are available from vendors near the market and from producers, including at Antequera’s weekly basket market. Philippine peso currency.

What to Expect

Antequera’s basket-weaving cottage industry is practised at the household level across the municipality. Visitors who seek out the production areas can observe skilled weavers producing traditional baskets from rattan, buri palm, banban, and bamboo. Products range from small household baskets to large carry baskets, with more than 500 distinct designs developed by local weavers since the tradition’s expansion. Prices are reported as significantly lower than retail prices for the same goods in Tagbilaran or Cebu City. The Basket Festival, held annually, is the tradition’s most concentrated showcase, timed to Antequera’s March 17 Foundation Day. The municipality now brands its four-day founding celebration the Piskaya Festival (March 14–17), built around basket and agricultural display booths and performances re-enacting the weaving trade — most likely the same event under a newer name, though the LGU’s current festival page does not itself use the name “Basket Festival,” so the two are not confirmed as identical.

Notes

Source: Bohol Tourism Profile Eco Dev2025.pdf (BPTO Table 11 — Inventory of Tourist Attractions). Antequera’s basket-weaving tradition is well-documented as a regional craft industry. Coordinates are approximate for Antequera Poblacion.

2026-07-28 research round: resolved the workshop-hours/address tag and the Basket Festival date tag via the official Antequera LGU site and independent local blog/news sources (see links below). For the remaining “number of active weavers or workshops today, and current approximate prices” tag, tried a fresh angle this round (LGU/tourism-office pages, DTI/NACIDA registration search, TripAdvisor, local blogs) beyond the prior philstar/Wikipedia pass. The only weaver-count figure found — “approximately 10,000 weavers from Antequera who support three established firms” — comes from a 2007 blog post (successtales.blogspot.com) and is nearly two decades old, so it is not used as a “today” figure; no current-decade count or price figures were found in any source checked (LGU pages, Bohol Tourism/Behold Bohol project pages, TripAdvisor, langyaw.com, ilovebohol.wordpress.com, bohol-philippines.com, raulgatal.blogspot.com). Tag left in place for a future pass; a next attempt could try contacting the Antequera Tourism Office directly (municipalityofantiquera@yahoo.com, per the LGU site) or checking Bohol PSA/DTI cottage-industry statistics.

• Preserving Bukag: Celebrating Boholano basketry in Antequera, accessed 2026-07-17.
• Antequera, Bohol - Wikipedia, accessed 2026-07-17.
• Events and Festivals | LGU Antequera - Bohol Philippines, accessed 2026-07-28 — Piskaya Festival dates (March 14–17) and Basket Weaving Experience Tour details (meeting point, hours, price, advance-booking requirement, age minimum).
• Antequera Basket Festival tag – Very Reliable Source (VRS), accessed 2026-07-28 — 2016 post describing the “2nd Basket Festival” held “last March 17.”
• Basket Festival Onwards - Antequera, Bohol (blog), accessed 2026-07-28 — confirms Basket Festival timing in March (2017 edition).
• Antequera celebrates 148th Foundation Day with Piskaya Festival - Bohol Tribune, accessed 2026-07-28 — confirms March 14–17, 2024 dates and basket-display-booth programming; does not use the name “Basket Festival.”
• Success Stories: Antequera, Bohol’s Basket Capital, accessed 2026-07-28 — source of the ~10,000-weaver / three-firms figure; dated 2007, not used as a current-day figure (see note above).