Panagat Festival

Overview

Panagat Festival is a cultural festival held in Poblacion, Dauis, on Panglao Island, listed in the BPTO provincial tourist-attraction inventory under “Customs and Tradition / Festival.” The name comes from the Cebuano word for communal fishing, and the festival exists to put that livelihood on display.

The Dauis local government staged the first Panagat Festival in August 2017 under Mayor Miriam Sumaylo, timed to the municipality’s 297th founding anniversary, with fishing named explicitly as the town’s primary livelihood. It has run annually since, alongside the older town fiesta honoring the patron, Our Lady of the Assumption, whose feast day is August 15.

Dauis was one of the earliest Spanish settlement sites in Bohol — Augustinian missionaries established a parish here in 1697, making it one of the island’s older parishes, though the municipality itself traces its founding anniversary to a later date, consistent with the 297-year mark cited for the 2017 inaugural staging. Under American administration, Dauis was briefly folded into a merged Tagbilaran jurisdiction before being reconstituted as a separate municipality in 1949. Panagat, timed to that founding date, sits alongside rather than replacing the older Assumption fiesta, giving the town two annual civic occasions rather than one.

Naming a festival after communal fishing is not a cosmetic choice in Dauis: most households along the peninsula’s western shore, particularly in barangays like Biking, Burgos, and Songculan, still depend directly on fishing for income, and the parade and dance showdown built into Panagat’s programme put that work on public display rather than treating it as backdrop. The inaugural staging paired that livelihood theme with a religious mass, a State of the Municipality Address from the mayor, and a mass wedding — a combination of civic, devotional, and communal elements typical of how Philippine town fiestas layer several purposes into one calendar date.

Dauis’s other defining site, the well inside the Our Lady of the Assumption church compound, sits outside Panagat’s own programme but shapes the wider civic calendar the festival occupies. The well is reputed to produce water with curative properties, particularly for eye ailments, a claim documented in 18th-century Augustinian records of Marian devotion at the site and still drawing Filipino pilgrims during the August fiesta period. Visitors combining a Panagat visit with the older Assumption feast can expect both the fishing-themed civic programme and the pilgrimage crowds the well draws to the church itself.

Food along the festival period follows the same pattern as the rest of the peninsula’s calendar: waterfront eateries in Barangay Songculan serve grilled tanigue and kinilaw na tuna, and calamay — a sticky sweet of coconut milk, glutinous rice, and brown sugar sold in small clay pots near Dauis Church — is a common pasalubong for fiesta-season visitors heading home.

Find places to stay across Dauis, Bohol

Location

Poblacion (town centre), Dauis, Panglao Island. Dauis municipality occupies the northern portion of Panglao Island, connected to Tagbilaran by the Panglao Bridge.

Getting There

Dauis is accessible from Tagbilaran city by tricycle or habal-habal (motorcycle taxi) across the Panglao Bridge, approximately 15–20 minutes. (verify details locally)

Practical Info

The festival runs across several nights leading up to and including August 15 (the town fiesta date). Reported activities from the inaugural staging include a religious mass, a parade, a dance competition/showdown, a mass wedding, and a State of the Municipality Address delivered by the mayor. (verify operating hours locally)

What to Expect

Based on the inaugural 2017 program: nightly festivities, a fishing-livelihood theme reflected in the parade and dance showdown, a civic address by the mayor, and a communal mass wedding — a common feature of Philippine town fiestas. (verify details locally)

Celebrating fishing as a livelihood sits alongside a quieter conservation reality along this stretch of the Dauis Peninsula: the same barangays that supply the boats and catch Panagat puts on display also draw on nearby coastal waters that support small barangay-managed fish sanctuaries elsewhere on Bohol’s coast, the kind of no-take zone that lets juvenile fish stocks recover enough to keep a fishing-dependent economy like Dauis’s viable from one generation to the next. Panagat doesn’t run its own sanctuary programme, but the livelihood it honors depends on that broader pattern of local stewardship holding.

Notes

• Dauis to hold 1st Panagat Festival; Sec. Evasco to join festivities, accessed 2026-07-17.
• List of Bohol festivals, accessed 2026-07-17.
• Verify specific site conditions, local guidelines, and safety rules with local guides or barangay officials before visiting.

Related

• All Bohol festivals by month
• Things to do in Bohol in August
• Dauis
• Bohol food & culture
• When to visit Bohol