Travel Tips

An Outrigger - motorized and manually-paddled one - is an indispensable means of transport in this coastal town. The photo here shows some of these seacrafts waiting for its passengers during a town's "saod" (market day).

A search for Miss Matnog is just one of those sidelights during a town fiesta. Matnog celebrates its feast day every 15-16 May in honor of the Holy Infant Jesus. The feast is supposed to be in a January but it is observe May perhaps due to a more favorable weather being a summer month and also a school break.

Cockfighting or sabong in Filipino ("bulang" to the local folks) always draws a large crowd either to bet or simply watch in delight as two roosters unleash its furies on each other usually a bloody fight -- the winner is the one who first run away or die. This photo was taken in Calintaan Island which is known for its white (or pink) sandy-Subic Beach.

Unregulated dumping of waste to the sea by ferry boats while docked in Matnog Port seemed to have no effect as one sees the clear torquoise sea as seen on the photo

Some folks find leisure either sitting on the sandy shore or dipping on the lowtide sea during summer months as shown on the photo.

Most of the time the town center is rarely crowded with people. The occasions when the place is teeming with people are during an observance of the Holy Week's Friday & Easter Sunday, a Town Fiesta (May 15), or during a rough sea when sea travellers bound for Visayas and Mindanao are stranded in the town.

One of the oldest buidling is obviously the town municipal hall. Its a lovely one-storey wood and concrete structure still bearing an Spanish inscription - "Matnog Presidencia". Unfortunately, this sight had been superimposed with a new building constructed right on its front area.

The town's officials has seemingly did not put value on this historic town landmark in favor of a new and more spaceous building which could have been built somewhere in the town. The old building could have been converted to a town museum complete with a public library.

Matnog is the last town to the south of the Philippines' biggest island Luzon. It's the jump-off point of land travellers bound for country's southern major regions - Visayas and Mindanao - and vice versa; thus, its very apt description as "The Gateway Town".