Mt. Banat-i

Overview

Banat-i Hill is the highest point within Tagbilaran City, rising about 146 metres above sea level in the district of Bool. From the summit, the view runs across the Bohol Sea toward Negros, Siquijor, and Mindanao, and over the strait separating the mainland from Panglao Island.

Location

The hill sits in Barangay Bool, on the southern edge of Tagbilaran City. Bool is also the district containing the Sandugo Blood Compact Site, which marks where Datu Sikatuna and Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi sealed a peace pact in 1565 — one of the most-cited events in Philippine colonial history, and the reason Bool carries as much historical weight as it does elevation.

Local retelling of that 1565 meeting holds that Sikatuna and Legazpi didn’t simply shake hands or sign paper — tradition has each man drawing his own blood, mixing it into a shared cup of wine, and drinking it together as a gesture that bound the two as sworn brothers rather than as treaty partners in the European sense. Historians treat the blood-mixing detail as tradition passed down through retelling rather than a documented fact of the encounter, but it’s the version told at the shrine below the hill and re-enacted every July at the city’s Sandugo Festival — giving Banat-i’s southern outlook over Bool a layer of civic meaning that most urban hills in the Philippines don’t carry.

Getting There

From the Tagbilaran City centre, take a tricycle or motorcycle to Barangay Bool. The hill is accessible from the Bool district, approximately 2 to 3 kilometres from the city centre. Tagbilaran is served by regular ferry connections from Cebu and other Visayan ports, as well as domestic flights at Tagbilaran Airport. The exact trailhead and walking time from the Bool district proper aren’t documented in available sources — ask locally in Bool for the current access point, since informal urban-hill trails like this one can shift over time.

Practical Info

• Elevation: approximately 146 metres above sea level
• District: Bool, Tagbilaran City
• Nearby: Sandugo Blood Compact Site
• Access appears to be informal rather than through a managed park or paid facility — no source consulted describes an entrance fee, formal trail maintenance, or a dedicated local-authority contact, so treat this as a self-guided urban hill climb and check conditions on arrival.

What to Expect

The summit gives a clear panorama over the city, the Bohol Sea, and — on clear days — the profiles of Negros and Siquijor to the north and Mindanao to the south. The hill has drawn local attention as a green space inside Tagbilaran’s urban fabric, with occasional calls for its formal protection as a conservation area.

That conservation concern reflects a pattern common to small Philippine cities: as Tagbilaran’s built-up area has expanded to fill nearly all of its 32.6 square kilometres, Banat-i and Elly Hill, its counterpart on the southern boundary, are among the last significant patches of undeveloped high ground left inside city limits. Losing tree cover on a hill like this doesn’t just remove a viewpoint — it affects rainwater absorption and runoff for the built-up areas immediately downhill, which is part of why residents who’ve raised the preservation question frame it as a drainage and green-space issue for the whole city, not simply an aesthetic one.

Notes

• Source: https://boholislandnews.com/2021/11/06/preserve-banat-i-hill-goes-viral/