Inang-angan Coral Stairway

Overview

The Inang-angan Coral Stairway rises in coral-stone flights from the coastal barangay of Napo up to the upland barangay of Moto, where the Nuestra Señora de la Luz (Our Lady of Light) parish church stands. It was built between 1847 and 1849 under parish priest Fr. Antonio Yus to link the original seaside settlement (Napo) with the church complex rebuilt on higher ground after repeated pirate raids forced the community to relocate uphill. Sources differ slightly on the exact step count: the Municipality of Loon’s own heritage page counts four broad flights totalling 174 steps plus a fifth, shorter flight of 38 steps up to the former convent (now Sacred Heart Academy) — 212 steps in all — while an academic architectural survey (Regalado Trota José, writing in Philippine Studies) describes it as 194 solid steps in three sections. The stairway forms part of the Nuestra Señora de la Luz Church Complex — church, mortuary chapel, and circular Spanish-era cemetery — declared a National Cultural Treasure on December 6, 2010.

Location

Barangay Napo (lower end) to Barangay Moto Norte (upper end, church complex), Loon, Bohol. The stairway is immediately beside the Loon Public Plaza and Nuestra Señora de la Luz Church, reachable via a short alleyway from either. Loon is approximately 27 km west of Tagbilaran City.

Getting There

From Tagbilaran City, travel by bus or public transport approximately 27 km (about 37 minutes) to Loon proper for roughly Php 50, or about 25 minutes by private vehicle. The church is visible from the National Highway; the stairway is accessed via the alleyway beside the church or the plaza.

Practical Info

• No standard entrance fee is documented; it is a public heritage stairway integrated into the town’s street network.
• Best time: Dry season (December–April) for comfortable walking and photography.
• Avoid: July–September (typhoon season).

What to Expect

A coral-stone stairway roughly six metres wide (per the National Museum of the Philippines’ description) climbs from the former fish-port promenade at Napo to the church plaza at Moto, with views toward the Cebu Strait from the top. It is still in daily use by residents and is central to the annual SidlaKasilak (Festival of Lights) procession, when residents and pilgrims climb it carrying lanterns in honour of the parish’s patroness. During the October 15, 2013 magnitude-7.2 Bohol earthquake, the coral-stone stairway survived largely intact even as the church above it collapsed; it was restored under National Museum guidance in the years that followed.

The stairway’s survival through that earthquake is a small but telling data point on 19th-century coral-stone construction: coral blocks bound with lime mortar, laid as broad, low-rise steps rather than a tall unsupported structure, distribute seismic stress differently than the church’s masonry bell towers, which failed. That contrast is part of why Loon’s own heritage office treats the stairway as more than a footpath to the church.

Fr. Antonio Yus’s original 1847–1849 project answered an economic and security problem rather than a purely devotional one: repeated pirate raids on the exposed seaside settlement at Napo had made daily life there unsafe, and relocating the parish uphill to Moto meant relocating the town’s civic and commercial center too. The stairway kept the two halves of that split town connected — fishing families still working the shoreline at Napo, and the church and market rebuilt on defensible high ground above them.

Notes

• Loon municipality also contains the Church of the Nuestra Señora de la Luz (Loon Church), another colonial-era heritage structure of the same complex.
• The nearby Kasadya sa Napo festival is associated with Barangay Napo.
• Loon Local Heritage — Municipality of Loon, accessed 2026-07-17.
• History of Loon, Bohol: Inang-angan Stairway — UnknownCebu, accessed 2026-07-17.
• Loon Church — Wikipedia, accessed 2026-07-17.
• Regalado Trota José, “A Visual Documentation of Fil-Hispanic Churches Part XV: Parish Church of Loay, and Dimiao, Bohol,” Philippine Studies (2014), accessed via doi.org/10.55997/ps3005xlix148pr2, accessed 2026-07-17 — gives an alternate step count (194 steps, three sections) worth reconciling against the municipal figure of 212.