Loon: Home to Bohol's Grandest Colonial Church

Loon sits on Bohol’s western coast facing the Cebu Strait, about 30 kilometres north of Tagbilaran along the coastal highway. Its landmark is the Immaculate Conception Parish Church, a monumental baroque-influenced structure with one of the most elaborate facades in the Visayas and a declared National Cultural Treasure — a scale far out of proportion to the town it serves, typical of Spanish colonial churches built as statements of institutional presence rather than sized to the local population.

Beyond the church, Loon is a fishing and coconut-farming municipality with a working port handling inter-barangay ferry traffic across the strait; its western coastline gives clear-morning views toward Cebu. The parish was founded by Augustinian missionaries with a 17th-century original foundation, and the current church, notable for its ornate twin-tower facade with neoclassical detailing, was largely completed in the 18th century, with additions continuing into the 19th. The 2013 earthquake (magnitude 7.2) partially collapsed the bell towers and caused major facade and nave damage; restoration, supported by the National Heritage Fund and international conservation partners, has continued in phases since 2014.

The church wasn’t always on this spot. Between 1847 and 1849, parish priest Fr. Antonio Yus oversaw construction of the Inang-angan Coral Stairway — coral-stone steps rising from the original seaside settlement of Napo up to the higher ground of Barangay Moto, where the church complex now stands — because repeated pirate raids had forced the community to abandon its original coastal site and rebuild inland and uphill. Sources differ on the exact count, but the Municipality of Loon’s own heritage page puts it at 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 total, a physical record of how seriously the threat of raiding shaped where and how this town was built. A separate, more recent conflict left its own memorial: Loon Peace Park, on a cliff overlooking the Moalong Bridge, marks what the municipality’s own tourism materials describe as local guerrillas’ most successful ambush against Japanese forces in World War II, commemorated every 27 September as the Battle of Moalong.

The fiesta for the Immaculate Conception falls on 8 December and draws regional pilgrims given the church’s heritage standing; the celebration itself, called SidlaKasilak or the Festival of Lights, spans several days and is built around a fluvial parade and a Dance of Lights competition — performers in LED-lit costumes carrying multicoloured lanterns, a modern restaging of the older devotional practice of carrying lit parol lanterns in procession. Loon’s fishing community keeps traditional handline fishing and bubo (fish trap) construction, and Cebuano is spoken throughout. Tinolang isda — fish poached in ginger broth with green papaya and malunggay — is the standard household dish along this stretch of coast, and the municipal market near the church sells danggit and dried squid dried on bamboo racks in the nearby barangays.

Geology and geography

Loon’s shoreline carries direct physical evidence of the 2013 earthquake beyond the damaged church. Basdacu Beach, in the barangay of the same name along the national highway, is a stretch of shoreline the municipality’s own tourism materials describe as newly exposed by the same magnitude-7.2 quake that damaged the church — seismic uplift raising a section of seabed clear of the water line, a geological event turned, within a few years, into one of the town’s more visited beaches. The town’s freshwater side runs through Barangay Ticugan, where Danicop-Ticugan Springs feeds a natural limestone pool with the greenish tint typical of Bohol’s karst springs, functioning mainly as a weekend picnic spot rather than a developed resort; behind the municipal hall in Barangay Cogon Norte, Tubig-Loon Spring Park draws on a spring source local etymology credits as the origin of the town’s own name. Offshore, Sandingan Island connects to the mainland by the Tajang Causeway, carrying both Rock Island Cove — a small beach built directly around its namesake rock outcrop — and “Hugot Road,” a stretch of roughly 101 painted concrete blocks inscribed with Cebuano-Filipino “hugot” lines about love and heartbreak, a 2018 Loon Tourism Office and youth-volunteer project that drew national media attention and a companion Abbey-Road-style painted crossing partway along.

Economy and livelihoods

Loon’s port handles inter-barangay ferry and RORO traffic to Cebu via Argao, and the Loon International Cruise Ship Port at Catagbacan — first proposed under the Strong Republic Nautical Highway program of the early 2000s and still being developed in phases by the Philippine Ports Authority — represents the municipality’s longest-running bet on shipping infrastructure rather than beach tourism as its growth path. On Sandingan Island, a different, smaller-scale model of investment is visible at Vita Isola Leisure Farm: a roughly one-hectare organic farm, aquaculture operation, and small resort that Boholano couple Raymond and Janeth Roldan — owners of the Visayas-wide Save N’ Earn telecom retail chain — built in 2018 by expanding what had started as a retirement rest house. The farm raises bangus, kitong, pompano, and abalone alongside native-breed chickens, turkeys, goats, quails, and rabbits, a working diversification model rather than a display farm. Most households outside these ventures still depend on handline fishing, bubo trap construction, and coconut farming, with fish-drying on bamboo racks a visible daily activity along the coastal barangays, most active in the dry season.

What to see and do

• Immaculate Conception Parish Church — the National Cultural Treasure and its ongoing post-earthquake restoration; the adjacent convento is among the largest surviving colonial-era priests’ residences in Bohol.
• Inang-angan Coral Stairway — a 19th-century coral-stone staircase linking the original coastal settlement of Napo to the relocated hilltop church, built after pirate raids forced the move.
• Basdacu Beach — a shoreline exposed by the 2013 earthquake’s seismic uplift, now one of Loon’s more visited beaches.
• Loon Peace Park — a clifftop WWII memorial overlooking Moalong Bridge, marking a successful local guerrilla ambush against Japanese forces.
• Sandingan Island (Rock Island Cove, Hugot Road, Vita Isola Leisure Farm) — reachable by causeway, combining a rock-outcrop beach, a quirky painted road of Cebuano love-and-heartbreak lines, and a working organic farm-resort.
• Danicop-Ticugan Springs and Tubig-Loon Spring Park — a forest-set natural pool and a municipal spring-fed swimming complex behind the town hall.
• The western coastal road to Tubigon — close-to-shore views across the Cebu Strait, with Cebu’s Cordillera Central visible on clear mornings.

Getting there and travel tips

From Tagbilaran, a Tubigon-bound jeepney or bus on the coastal highway reaches Loon in 45 minutes to an hour (about 30 km) from the Dao terminal; the church is 200 metres off the highway. There is no dedicated tourist accommodation — Tagbilaran is the practical base for a half-day excursion, ideally combined with a Tubigon port visit. Visit the church between 8:00 and 11:00 AM, when light falls on the facade and the plaza is quiet; restoration scaffolding may obstruct parts of the facade depending on the current phase of work. The earthquake damage across Loon’s coastal barangays — the church towers, older masonry near the plaza, and the uplifted beach at Basdacu — is worth reading together rather than separately: the same seismic event that damaged one of Bohol’s most important heritage structures also reshaped the coastline that today draws a smaller but growing number of beach visitors, a reminder that this stretch of coast sits directly on an active fault system and that restoration funding for a National Cultural Treasure competes with far more basic post-disaster needs in the surrounding barangays.

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Location and route detail reflect the source research current as of 2026-07-16. Confirm current transport schedules before travel.