Bacoor
— — oyster water at the edge of the capital.
Not only on a wall.
“A coastal city in Cavite at the southwest corner of Metro Manila, where the bay narrows and the fish-pen stakes run out into the shallows. Bacoor sits on water the locals have farmed for oysters and mussels for generations. The Zapote River runs out here, the same river Aguinaldo's forces defended at the Battle of Zapote Bridge in 1899. The Sunday market still moves talaba (oyster) and tahong (green mussel) the way it did before the bay turned to causeway and reclamation.
Bacoor, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Bacoor is a coastal city in the province of Cavite, at the southwest corner of Metro Manila on the south shore of Manila Bay. The 2020 census recorded a population near 664,000, making it one of the most populous cities in Calabarzon. The Zapote River forms the boundary with Las Piñas to the northeast, and the bay edge has long supported oyster and mussel aquaculture in the shallows offshore. The city sits on the Manila-Cavite Expressway and the old coastal road south toward Kawit, the historic home of Emilio Aguinaldo and the site of the 1898 Philippine declaration of independence.
What anchors Bacoor in the Philippine memory is the water. Talaba (oyster) and tahong (green mussel) have been farmed on bamboo and tire stakes in the shallows here for more than a century, and the city is still one of the country's main suppliers of both. The Zapote River, which empties into the bay at the city's eastern edge, was the line Emilio Aguinaldo's Filipino forces held at the Battle of Zapote Bridge on 13 June 1899, in the early months of the Philippine-American War. Bacoor served briefly as Aguinaldo's seat of government before the capital moved to Malolos.
Bacoor is reached from Manila on the Manila-Cavite Expressway (CAVITEX) in roughly 30 to 60 minutes depending on traffic. The St. Michael the Archangel Parish Church in the old town centre dates to the Spanish colonial period and is one of the oldest stone churches in Cavite. Local seafood restaurants along the bay road serve talaba and tahong straight from the morning's harvest. The dry season runs roughly November through May; June through October brings the southwest monsoon and the bay reads grey and active under heavy cloud.