Samboan Church

Samboan Church — properly St. Michael the Archangel Parish — dates to the late 18th century, its walls built from coral stone bound with the lime-and-egg-white mortar typical of Spanish-era construction in the Visayas. The result is a nave thick enough to have outlasted more than a century of coastal weather, standing on Cebu’s southwestern tip with the Tañon Strait at its front door. The parish serves a coastal community whose income still runs largely on small-boat fishing and the dried-fish trade common to southern Cebu’s shoreline towns.

• Coral Stone Architecture: look closely at the block coursing — uneven, hand-cut stone rather than the machine-milled brick used in later 19th-century rebuilds elsewhere in Cebu.
• Jacob’s Ladder: climb the 147 stone steps connecting the church to the old watchtower, built as part of the same coastal defense network that dotted the Visayas against Moro raids.
• Panoramic Coastline Views: from the top of the steps, the view takes in Negros across the strait.

Explore More in Samboan to Badian

• Kabutongan Canyon
• Dao Falls
• Alegria Heritage Park