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Bauan, Batangas

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Culture & history

Bauan, Batangas · est. 1596 · moved 1690

Three moves,
one cross,
one dance.

Bauan has been burned, rebuilt and relocated three times. Through all of it, the town kept a wooden cross and a dance for it — the subli — and still keeps both on the first days of May.

We are One in Bauan. The line is the town's own, used again at its 336th founding anniversary.

Three days in May.

Sublian Festival · 25th edition, 2026

  1. 1 May

    The crosses travel

    The Mahal na Poong Sta. Cruz of Bauan is carried to Alitagtag.

  2. 2 May

    Salubong at Concordia

    The sibling crosses meet; Mass at Binukalan, then luwa and subli.

  3. 3 May

    The town fiesta

    The feast of the Holy Cross, kept in Bauan since the sixteenth century.

The 25th Sublian Festival was held on 2 May 2026. The programme began with the cross carried to Alitagtag for Mass at Binukalan, then the two crosses returned to Bauan, met the manunubli at the Manghinao bridge, and were carried through the Poblacion to the church.

The subli

A dance offered
to the cross.

The subli is Bauan's own devotional dance: part prayer, part procession, part performance. It is offered to the Mahal na Poong Santa Cruz, the Holy Cross kept in the Immaculate Conception Church. Dancers work in pairs, the men shuffling hard against the ground with a bamboo stick, the women answering with small, precise turns of the wrist.

The name is often explained as coming from subsob and bali — to fall forward, to break — a description of the dancers' movement rather than a doctrine. The performance has three parts: the kambulong, the subli proper, and the pandangguhan. It can be danced for a feast, a birthday, a recovery, or the fulfilment of a panata.

The cross was said to grow light when the people of Bauan danced. It has been theirs ever since.The Alitagtag tradition, as retold in the subli

The story places the finding around 1595, in a place called Diñgin near what is now Alitagtag, then part of Bauan. Taal, Lipa and Bauan each sent a delegation to claim the wood. Only Bauan's priest is said to have moved it, accompanied by dancers. When Alitagtag became a municipality in 1910, the cross was divided: the two magkapatid na krus still meet at Concordia every 2 May.

The town, moved.

1590 → today
  1. 1590

    A visita of Taal

    Bauan begins as a chapel community on the shore of Taal Lake, served from Taal. Fr. Diego de Avila is appointed to the natives of Bauan on 17 May.

  2. 1596

    An independent parish

    On 12 May Bauan becomes the fifth parish in Batangas, with Fr. Ildefonso Bernal as first parish priest. The Holy Cross tradition belongs to this same decade.

  3. 1653

    A town of its own

    Bauan is separated from Taal and constituted as a town, after a petition led by Fernando Mangobos, who becomes its first governadorcillo.

  4. 1662

    The first move

    Taal Volcano drives the town inland to Durungao, under Fr. Jose Rodriguez. A stone church and convent follow in 1667.

  5. 1671

    The second move

    The town moves to Duclap, beside Sinala, under Fr. Nicolas de Rivera. It stays until 1690.

  6. 1690

    The present site

    The third and last relocation brings Bauan to Tulusan, by the sea. The town still counts its founding from this move: the 336th anniversary fell on 30 January 2026.

  7. 1762

    The church we know

    The present Immaculate Conception Church is begun under Fr. Jose Victoria and Don Juan Bandino, and finished over the following decades.

  8. 1775

    A fort by the sea

    A cotta is built to protect the town from Moro raids, a reminder that this coast was a frontier.

  9. 1898

    Fire and revolution

    The church is razed during the Philippine revolution against Spain, and suffers again in the twentieth century before its restoration.

  10. 1910

    Alitagtag

    The first of Bauan’s children becomes a separate municipality. The Holy Cross is divided into the two sibling crosses.

  11. 1918

    Mabini

    Mabini, including the country around Cape Santiago, is carved out of Bauan.

  12. 1955

    Tingloy

    Tingloy, on Maricaban Island, becomes its own municipality.

  13. 1969

    San Pascual

    San Pascual is separated, leaving Bauan at its present 40 barangays.

  14. 2025

    The first woman mayor

    Wendah Katrina Rivera Dolor is elected mayor and takes office on 30 June, succeeding Ryanh M. Dolor.

Dates follow the LGU's published history and its anniversary posts. Where the record gives a range or a succession rather than an election, the text says so. The pre-1690 relocations are the town's own account, not an archaeological survey.

The name itself is disputed: bauang, a concealed ridge, or bawang, the garlic farmers were planting when a Spanish official asked.

Tier CSource:Municipality of Bauan — news, history and anniversary pages · History of Bauan; 336th Founding Anniversary; 25th Sublian Festival · read Nov 4, 2026The municipal server timed out when fetched directly. Passages used here were read from the LGU's indexed pages on 4 November 2026 and are quoted, not paraphrased into figures.

Keep reading

The record around the story.

Culture is the part of Bauan that national datasets cannot hold. The rest of this site can be checked line by line; this page is a narrative, and says so.

01Mayors since 1998The succession the town made history with.→02Where it happensBatangas, the coast, and the forty barangays.→03The forty40 barangays, with PSA counts.→