Inday Potenciana Chapel

Overview

Inday Potenciana Chapel stands beside the town cemetery in Barangay Tawid, about 2 kilometers from Anda town proper. Devotees from across Bohol and neighboring provinces come here to pay respects, light candles, buy oil, and pray before the remains of Potenciana Saranza — a local woman whose body was found intact when her family exhumed it nine years after her death. That discovery is the origin of the popular veneration that still draws visitors to Anda.

Saranza was born May 19, 1927, and died April 1, 1953, at age 25, in a truck accident. She had worked as a teacher at Bincalan Elementary School in Misamis Oriental and was first buried in Gingoog City. Her remains are now displayed in a glass case inside the shrine alongside flowers, saint images, and family paintings; local sources attribute the remains’ blackened appearance to acid used during the later exhumation. The site’s caretaker is Reyboy Silud. Visitor numbers peak around November 1–2, the Catholic All Souls’/All Saints’ period, when devotees come seeking healing, exam success, or the fulfillment of promises made at the shrine — though the Catholic Church has not declared any of the reported healings miraculous. A separate, unfinished structure nearby, the Birhen sa Regla (Our Lady of Remedies) Chapel, was begun in 1994 by local resident Virginia Cavales after a reported dream of her own.

Location

Barangay Tawid, Anda, Bohol. Anda is a peninsula municipality at the southeastern tip of Bohol, about 100 km from Tagbilaran City via the Jagna route. The chapel sits beside the municipal cemetery, roughly 2 km from the Anda town center.

Getting There

From Tagbilaran City, travel southeast via Jagna (approximately 2.5–3 hours by bus). Buses and vans bound for Anda depart from Tagbilaran’s integrated bus terminal. From Anda town proper, the chapel is about 2 km — accessible by tricycle or on foot.

Practical Info

• Open: [FACT NEEDED — specific chapel hours not confirmed; a caretaker, Reyboy Silud, maintains the site]
• Candles and oil are available for purchase at the site
• Modest dress is expected as at any religious site
• Best months: December–April (dry season; roads to Anda are in better condition)
• Avoid: July–September (typhoon season; Anda’s coastal roads can be affected)

What to Expect

The setting beside the municipal cemetery gives the chapel a contemplative register that a parish church visit doesn’t carry — this is a shrine built around one specific claim, not a general house of worship. What draws people is less the building than the story behind it: after Saranza’s death and burial in Gingoog City, family members reported sharing similar dreams in which she asked to be brought back to Anda. When they exhumed her nine years later and found the body intact, word spread quickly through Bohol and the neighboring provinces, and the shrine’s visitor traffic has followed that story since.

Notes

• The chapel’s significance is rooted in oral tradition and popular Catholic devotion rather than formal Church canonization.
• Anda municipality is also known for the Anda Lagoon and several cave pool formations, making it a viable combined itinerary with this chapel.
• Sources differ slightly on the interval between death and first exhumation (this file’s Overview states nine years; a 2016 Inquirer report states the first exhumation, in Gingoog City, found the remains intact roughly ten years after burial). Both figures are left here since neither source is definitive.

Faith and the cult of Inday Potenciana in Anda, accessed 2026-07-17. Preserved body draws visitors to Bohol town, accessed 2026-07-17.