Roxas City
— — a coast that smells like the morning catch.
Not only on a wall.
“The capital of Capiz province, on the north coast of Panay Island in the central Philippines. Roxas calls itself the Seafood Capital of the Philippines and the title holds at the Baybay shoreline, where small outrigger boats land oysters, blue crabs, and the day's fish onto an open stretch of stalls. The city is the birthplace of Manuel A. Roxas, the first president of the Third Republic, and the streets around the old plaza still carry his name. The light at the river mouth where the Panay River meets the Sibuyan Sea reads soft and salt-bright. Evenings are humid and slow. — from the studio
Roxas City, 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.
Roxas City is the capital of Capiz province on the northeast coast of Panay Island, in the Western Visayas region of the central Philippines. The 2020 national census recorded a population of about 179,000 across an area of roughly 95 square kilometres at the mouth of the Panay River, on the Sibuyan Sea. The city was renamed in 1951 to honour Manuel A. Roxas, born in nearby Capiz town in 1892, who became the first president of the independent Third Republic in 1946. Roxas Airport at Baybay handles daily flights from Manila and Cebu, with flight times around an hour.
Capiz produces a substantial share of the country's farmed oysters and blue crabs, and the provincial government has long marketed Roxas as the Seafood Capital of the Philippines. Baybay Beach runs about seven kilometres along the city's northern edge, lined with seafood stalls that grill the morning's catch by request — a model close in spirit to a Philippine paluto-style market. The Panay River meets the Sibuyan Sea at the eastern end of the city, and the mangrove flats between Olotayan Island and the river mouth support both the oyster trade and the migratory bird counts at low tide.
The civic calendar holds two anchors. Capiztahan, the provincial founding celebration on 15 April, marks the 1901 establishment of Capiz province and runs about a week. Sinadya sa Halaran, the city's harvest and patronal festival around early December, honours the Immaculate Conception and the Sto. Niño with a coastal procession and street-dance competitions. The dry months from December through May are the easier travel window; the southwest monsoon brings heavy rain from June into October. Average year-round temperatures sit in the high 20s Celsius. The Sibuyan Sea reads warm and clear most of the dry season.