The Liloan Lighthouse, officially named the Bagacay Point Light, is one of the famous lighthouses in the Visayas and is located in Barangay Catarman, Liloan, Cebu, about 18 kilometers northeast of Cebu City. The lighthouse is maintained by the Philippine Coast Guard and serves as a critical navigational aid for ships going into the Mactan Channel from the north towards Cebu City.

Photo by Benjie Ordoñez.

Standing 22 meters tall, the lighthouse was constructed in 1904 by the American colonial government under an executive order of then Governor-General William Howard Taft. This replaced an earlier lighthouse established by the Spanish authorities in 1857. The National Historical Institute designated the lighthouse as a National Historical Landmark on August 13, 2004.

Now for some technical details. The lighthouse (parola in Tagalog) has a focal plane of 44 meters. It flashes its white light every five seconds and can be seen from 17 nautical miles away. Like most other lighthouses in the country, the Liloan Lighthouse is solar-powered.

YouTube has a nice slideshow of the interiors of the lighthouse while WaypointsDotPH has a narrative about the lighthouse and a few pictures. In addition, the Liloan Lighthouse is a favorite subject of painters and photographers; you can see some artistic photos of the lighthouse from Flickr. The lighthouse is so famous that there’s actually a replica of it in in the town proper of Liloan.

Download KML file (for Google Earth)