san juan municipal tourism office

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Visitor Information / Tourism Offices in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico Travel Guide ⎮  San Juan Puerto Rico   ⎮  Visitor Information / Tourism Offices

Save a Spot - Most Popular Walking Tour

The Puerto Rico Tourism Company does a wonderful job offering various locations with friendly staff ready to answer your questions.  During cruise arrival days they set up tents with staff ready to help.  Feel free to stop by the offices where you can get pamphlets, brochures, and maps to help you navigate the city.

Their toll-free number is 1-800-866-7827

Local Telephone Number:  787-722-1709

Tourism Office Locations

Puerto rico tourism company headquarters.

Located at Paseo de la Princesa in Old San Juan

A welcome desk is at the entrance of the building, they offer nice maps and a few brochures.  This is a beautiful building, which was the city prison during the 19th century, today it is the headquarters of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company.  Visitors are welcome to enter to get information, visit the gallery, and walk around the elegant courtyard where you can admire the city walls and architecture of surrounding buildings.  You may also tour the remaining jail cells, a quick stop great for kids and history buffs.

Tel: 787-722-1709

Top Rated Places to Stay in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

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San Juan Airport (Luís Muñoz Marín Airport)

Terminal C – 787-791-1014

Old San Juan Tourism Office – Ochoa Building

Located right across from Pier 1 at the Cruise Ship Terminal waterfront. West corner of the building.

Address: 500 Calle Tanca, Old San Juan, PR  00902

Tel: (787) 722-1709 exts. 3903, 3902, 3905

Hours: 9:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Tourist Information Center at Casa Alcaldia / City Hall

Located right at the top of San Francisco Street at Plaza de Armas.  The building is the one pictured below with towers.

Top Rated Walking Tours in Old San Juan

+ Old San Juan Tours

Tourist Information Kiosks

Plaza Salvador Brau – 312 San Francisco Street

Street 25 – located behind Tapia Theatre

Map of Tourism Offices in San Juan

Top rated tours from san juan, privacy overview.

Municipal Tourism Office

Click here to go back to Tourism Page.  

Tourist Arrival Record in San Juan, Batangas

Income on Ecological Fee Collection

Barangay share - ecological fee collection, travel guidelines.

DISCOVER SAN JUAN

Tourism Accommodation Establishments

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Binibining San Juan 2022 Grand Coronation Night  

Ang natatagong kasaysayan ng San Juan, Batangas

One San Juan Radio Program with Mayor Beebong Salud and Councilor Alvin John Samonte

Tourism of San Juan, Batangas for MGCQ

LAMBAYOK Festival 2019

San Juan, Batangas Christmas Display 2020

Mayor Ildebrando D. Salud - Unang taon ng panunungkulan sa Bayan ng San Juan, Batangas

May Pag-asa

Exclusive : Leaders in Action featuring Hon. Beebong Salud, Municipal Mayor, San Juan, Batangas

Programs and Projects 

Go to : https://www.lbp-eservices.com/egps/portal/Transactions.jsp

DAILY WEATHER REPORT

Barangay risk assessment.

Local Governance Summit 2024

2023 sglg awarding | 12.13.2023, sisterhood signing with magdiwang, romblon | 11.30.2023, 160th bonifacio day | 11.30.2023.

SAN JUAN CITY

• Pinaglabanan Street, cor Dr.P.A.Narciso, Street, San Juan, Metro Manila
• Mayor Francisco Javier M. Zamora

Balong-Bato

Corazon De Jesus

San Perfecto

Addition Hills

Little Baguio

BALONG BATO

19 f. roman st..

Punong Barangay : Alvin G. Alonzo

Sangguniang Kabataan : Jose Gabriel R. Baloso

Address : 19 F. Roman St., Brgy. Balong Bato, San Juan City

Contact Number : 8723-9561

E-mail Address : [email protected]

420 F. Manalo St.

7744-0737 / 8295-6220.

Punong Barangay : Dino C. Geneston

Sangguniang Kabataan : Shereena B. Tan

Address : 420 F. Manalo St., Brgy. Batis, San Juan City

Contact Number : 7744-0737 / 8295-6220 / 0968-854-8301

E-mail Address : [email protected]

CORAZON DE JESUS

480 lt. artiaga st., 8254-9102 / 8811-6227.

Punong Barangay : Medardo E. Cabubas Jr.

Sangguniang Kabataan : Aisencarl C. Crisologo

Address : 480 P. Narciso cor. Lt. Artiaga St., Brgy. Corazon De Jesus, San Juan City

Contact Number : 8254-9102 / 8811-6227

E-mail Address : [email protected]

128 Aurora Blvd.

Punong Barangay : Romeo G. Nabong

Sangguniang Kabataan : Chrysanthemum A. Buena

Address : 128 Aurora Blvd., Brgy. Ermitaño, San Juan City

Contact Number : 7919-4885

E-mail Address : [email protected]

185 F. Benitez St.

Punong Barangay : Jaime O. Venal

Sangguniang Kabataan : Aika Mari R. Bautista

Address : 185 F. Benitez, Brgy. Pasadena, San Juan City

Contact Number : 7745-3451

E-mail Address : [email protected]

Website : barangaypasadena.com

J. Basa St.

Punong Barangay : Francis P. Ocampo

Sangguniang Kabataan : One Miguel D. Castillo

Address : J. Basa St., Brgy. Pedro Cruz, San Juan City

Contact Number : 8288-6467

E-mail Address : [email protected]

15 M. Cruz St.

Punong Barangay : Cesar H. Sto. Domingo Jr.

Sangguniang Kabataan : Anton Jose T. Cabrillas

Address : 15 M. Cruz St., Brgy. Progreso, San Juan City

Contact Number : 8727-5635

E-mail Address : [email protected]

8-C San Manuel St.

Punong Barangay : Anthony S. Margarico

Sangguniang Kabataan : John Rome Q. Maneja

Address : 8-C San Manuel St., Brgy. Rivera, San Juan City

Contact Number : 8942-2543 / 0917-863-6334

E-mail Address : [email protected]

38 J. Ruiz St.

Punong Barangay : Charles D. Tejoso

Sangguniang Kabataan : Alliyah Loren L. De Guzman

Address : 38 J. Ruiz St., Brgy. Salapan, San Juan City

Contact Number : 8251-3116

E-mail Address : [email protected]

SAN PERFECTO

9 san perfecto st..

Punong Barangay : Dennis B. Pardiñez

Sangguniang Kabataan : Sean Adriann L. Magtalas

Address : 9 San Perfecto St., Brgy. San Perfecto, San Juan City

Contact Number : 8633-3596

ADDITION HILLS

E. rodriguez cor. ortega st..

Punong Barangay : Herbert O. Chua (ABC President)

Sangguniang Kabataan : Francine Alexandria B. Gil (SK Federation President)

Address : E. Rodriguez cor. Ortega St., Brgy. San Juan City

Contact Number : 8352-0211

E-mail Address : [email protected]

Annapolis Whilshire Plaza

8724-5156 / 8724-5163.

Punong Barangay : Lorenzo T. Yam

Sangguniang Kabataan : Sarah T. Maraan

Address : Unit 1204-05, 12th Flr. 11 Annapolis Wilshire Plaza, Annapolis St., Brgy. Greenhills, San Juan City

Contact Number : 8724-5156 / 8724-5163

E-mail Address : [email protected]

46 Santolan Rd. Cor. P. Perey St.

Punong Barangay : Geraldine B. Conanan

Sangguniang Kabataan : Yves Laurent M. Del Rosario

Address : 46 Santolan rd. cor. P. Perey St., Brgy. Isabelita, San Juan City

Contact Number : 8722-6948

E-mail Address : [email protected]

42 A. Bonifacio Cor. Jose Abad Santos

Punong Barangay : Maria Charisma L. Geronimo

Sangguniang Kabataan : Maoui O. Capulong

Address : 42 A. Bonifacio cor. Jose Abad Santos Sts., Brgy. Kabayanan, San Juan City

Contact Number : 8461-7073

E-mail Address : [email protected]

LITTLE BAGUIO

1 gen. guitierrez st..

Punong Barangay : Ricardo M. Silvano

Sangguniang Kabataan : Ariane Zachary M. Silvano

Address : 1 Gen. Gutierrez St., Brgy. Little Baguio, San Juan City

Contact Number : 7090-3887

E-mail Address : [email protected]

M. H. Del Pilar cor. V. Cruz

Punong Barangay : Artemio C. Samson

Sangguniang Kabataan : Magel P. Luciano

Address : M. H. Del Pilar cor. V. Cruz Sts., Brgy. Maytunas, San Juan City

Contact Number : 8722-7848 / 0927-016-3219

E-mail Address : [email protected]

Panganiban Sts. J. P. Rizal cor J. V. Panganiban St.

Punong Barangay : Roberto B. Alba

Sangguniang Kabataan : John Michael D. Permato

Address : J. P. Rizal cor. J. V. Panganiban Sts., Brgy. Onse, San Juan City

Contact Number : 7744-0740

E-mail Address : [email protected]

Bldg. 3, Ground Flr., St. Joseph Ville

Punong Barangay : Reggie D. Hababag

Sangguniang Kabataan : John Rovic S. Lim

Address : Bldg. 3, Ground Floor, St. Josephville, Brgy. St. Joseph, San Juan City

Contact Number : 0933-816-5334 / 0917-514-9765 / 7968-2186

1 V. S. Angeles St.

Punong Barangay : Eustaquio V. Belches Jr.

Sangguniang Kabataan : John Bryan M. Dela Cruz

Address : 1 V. S. Angeles St., Brgy. Sta. Lucia, San Juan City

Contact Number : 7726-5385

E-mail Address : [email protected]

7 R. Pascual St.

Punong Barangay : Daniel Simon T. Gaa

Sangguniang Kabataan : Christian E. Tan

Address : 7 R. Pascual St., Brgy. Tibagan, San Juan City

Contact Number : 8723-9837

E-mail Address : [email protected]

Block F, Rd. 7, 1st West Crame

Punong Barangay : Marcelino C. Trinidad

Sangguniang Kabataan : Bonifacio Manzano III

Address : Block F, rd. 7, 1st West Crame, Brgy. West Crame, San Juan City

Contact Number : 8635-0169

E-mail Address : [email protected]

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Latest news and events.

Read the latest News from the City of San Juan

Local Governance Summit 2024See more

Attending the Local Governance Summit 2024 at the PICC with our dear President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. as guest of honor and...

2023 SGLG AWARDING | 12.13.2023See more

December 14, 2023

San Juan City proudly announces its receipt of the 2023 Seal of Good Local Governance, the highest honor that can...

SISTERHOOD SIGNING WITH MAGDIWANG, ROMBLON...See more

December 01, 2023

We signed a sisterhood agreement with Magdiwang, Romblon Mayor Arthur Rey Tansiongco to share our best...

160TH BONIFACIO DAY | 11.30.2023See more

Pinangunahan po natin ang pagdiriwang ng ika-160 kaarawan ni Andres Bonifacio sa Pinaglabanan Shrine. Inalala natin...

MAKABAGONG SAN JUAN MAGAZINE

Read the annual accomplishments of the City of San Juan!

City Activities

Find out the latest activities in the City!

San Juan City Inclusivity Walk

San Juan LGU proudly launched the San Juan City Inclusivity Walk, a pioneering event in the National Capital Region dedicated to celebrating... Read More

INAUGURATION AND BLESSING : SAN PERFECTO ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

May 07, 2024

Mga minamahal kong San Juaneño, magkita-kita po tayo sa Huwebes, May 9, 2024, 10:00am para sa Inauguration at Blessing ng... Read More

INAUGURATION AND BLESSING : SAN JUAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

ga minamahal kong San Juaneño, magkita-kita po tayo sa Huwebes, November 9, 10am, sa San Juan Elementary School para sa Inauguration at... Read More

ABOUT BATANGAS

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San Juan, Batangas, is a thriving first-class municipality located in the 4th District of Batangas Province. Established on December 12, 1848, it is comprised of 42 vibrant barangays. Spanning an area of 237.40 square kilometers, equivalent to approximately 8.6% of Batangas’ total land area, San Juan possesses abundant untapped potential. The municipality boasts of natural resources and is home to picturesque white sand beaches along Sigayan Bay, as well as captivating black sand beaches along Tayabas Bay. Furthermore, San Juan takes pride in its cultural heritage, with ancestral and heritage buildings adding to its allure as a sought-after tourist destination in Batangas. The tourism industry has played a pivotal role in the municipality’s economic growth, contributing 1.2% to its annual income in 2018. With its significant forward and backward linkages and multiplier effects, tourism provides employment, income, and opportunities for the local population, cementing its position as a key economic driver in San Juan.

History and Heritage

San Juan, formerly known as Bolbok, started as a small village that grew in population and economic activities, eventually becoming a town led by gobernadorcillos. Don Camilo Perez served as the first gobernadorcillo, accomplishing various public works and maintaining peace and order. Due to frequent floods in 1869, the town was relocated to a new site, incorporating the areas of Calit-calit, Maraykit, and Lipahan. Under successive gobernadorcillos, the government of San Juan thrived. During the Spanish regime, the cooperation of illustrados and Spanish priest founders led to the inauguration of the town parish church in 1884. In the 1920s, the name Bolbok was officially changed to San Juan in honor of the patron Saint San Juan de Nepomuceno.

Recognized as a separate municipality in 1848, San Juan is the second-largest municipality in Batangas, covering a land area of 27,340 hectares primarily dedicated to agriculture. It was reclassified as a first-class municipality in 2005. With 42 barangays and a population of 90,294 according to the 2008 NEDA Census, San Juan is strategically located in the southernmost part of Batangas. It serves as the southeastern gateway to the province, connecting to the Philippines-Japan Friendship Highway (Daang Maharlika), a major mainland transport route from Metro Manila to Mindanao. Situated approximately 43 kilometers east of Batangas City and southwest of Lucena City, and about 120 kilometers south of Metro Manila, San Juan benefits from its proximity to important cities. Bounded by the Verde Island Passage, it facilitates inter-island travel and interactions with Batangas, Quezon, Mindoro, and Marinduque.

San Juan’s picturesque location at the southern tip, featuring beautiful white sandy beaches, coves, and marine life surrounded by mountains and hills, presents opportunities for tourism development. The Laiya area and its surroundings have been identified as a tourism development precinct in the Tourism Master Plan for Batangas/Taal/Tagaytay areas. With access to fishing grounds in Tayabas Bay and the presence of inland fishponds, swamps, and marshes in the eastern barangays, the municipality is rich in marine resources. The forested mountainous inland area offers a 33-kilometer coastline with diverse marine life, making it a desirable destination for visitors.

The rainy season starts in June and ends in November. When December comes, the people experienced a very cool dawn. The summer season on the month of March to the end of May.

TIPS & TRICKS

If you prefer a hassle-free trip, you can rent a car or hire a private vehicle for more convenience and flexibility. Public transportation, such as buses and jeepneys, is also available and can be a more budget-friendly option.

Batangas: Where history, beauty, and resilience converge, creating a tapestry of captivating stories and unforgettable moments.

Lambayok Festival

Held annually on December 12, Lambayok Festival is not only a time for celebration but also a platform to promote the local industries and boost tourism in San Juan. It serves as a reminder of the town’s history, cultural heritage, and the significant contributions of lambanog, palayok, and karagatan to the community’s livelihood. Through this lively and colorful event, locals and visitors alike can come together to celebrate, appreciate, and preserve the unique traditions and industries that make San Juan a remarkable destination.

Festival images Courtesy of JBROS Photography.

New Municipal Hall image courtesy of Jessa Mae Garcia Jimenez

Local Attractions

Batangas in the Philippines offers a range of local attractions that cater to various interests. These are just a few of the attractions you can explore in Batangas. Whether you’re interested in history, nature, or relaxation, the city offers something for everyone.

Marian Orchard

Caleruega Church

Taal Basilica

Matabungkay Beach

Getting around.

Buses provide transportation for longer distances, connecting Batangas with other regions and provinces. These buses have designated terminals and offer a more comfortable option for longer journeys.

Jeepneys are a staple mode of public transportation in the Philippines. They are colorful, elongated jeeps that can carry multiple passengers. Jeepneys follow specific routes and have fixed fares.

These motorized vehicles consist of a motorcycle with a sidecar, which can accommodate around 3 to 4 passengers. Tricycles are commonly used for short trips within the city, and fares are usually negotiable.

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San Juan (Batangas)

• 1 Understand
• 3 Get around

<a href=\"https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikivoyage/w/poi2gpx.php?print=gpx&amp;lang=en&amp;name=San_Juan_(Batangas)\" title=\"Download GPX file for this article\" data-parsoid=\"{}\"><img alt=\"Download GPX file for this article\" resource=\"./File:GPX_Document_rev3-20x20.png\" src=\"//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/GPX_Document_rev3-20x20.png\" decoding=\"async\" data-file-width=\"20\" data-file-height=\"20\" data-file-type=\"bitmap\" height=\"20\" width=\"20\" class=\"mw-file-element\" data-parsoid='{\"a\":{\"resource\":\"./File:GPX_Document_rev3-20x20.png\",\"height\":\"20\",\"width\":\"20\"},\"sa\":{\"resource\":\"File:GPX Document rev3-20x20.png\"}}'/></a></span>"}'/> San Juan is a municipality of Batangas . It is home to the other beaches in the province besides those in the west coast and Mabini ;

San Juan is composed of a Spanish-era town center ( poblacion ) with streets laid out in a grid, and a larger area mostly agricultural in background. The town is at the center of the main route between Batangas and Quezon provinces. A major tourist draw is the white-sand beaches of Laiya , to the south of town; today, tourism is a major local source of revenue, after aquaculture and agriculture.

San Juan is served by some bus companies:

• ALPS the Bus has trips from their Manila terminals to the downtown.
• Supreme has service from Batangas City to Lucena through these town, using a mix of air-conditioned and ordinary buses.
• P&O runs Batangas City-Tagkawayan using an air-conditioned fleet. No advanced booking is needed for short to medium distances, e.g. from Batangas City or Lucena, but a pre-booked ticket is necessary if coming from their Tagkawayan terminal.

A trip from Batangas City by bus costs at around ₱84 to downtown ( ₱74 from Lucena terminal).

Jeepneys are a cheaper option, but are uncomfortable and infrequent outside daylight hours. Nonetheless, they are the only public transport option from Lipa . From Batangas City, a jeepney trip will entail a transfer at downtown Rosario, 22   km (14   mi) west, which can be only a waste of time and money, and jeepneys from there are infrequent. Better catch a bus from the Grand Terminal.

By car, The Rosario-San Juan-Candelaria Road and the Quezon Eco-tourism Road are the main highways to town. The Rosario-San Juan leg of the former and the whole segment of the latter forms Route 422 ; they provide the best road connection from Lucena, but the coastal portion can look a bit isolated, as it passes through coastal villages through the municipalities of Sariaya and Candelaria.

The town center at the barangay of Poblacion is compact, and walkable. Tricycles are abundant.

There is a highway between Poblacion and Laiya. There are many improvements along the road, including widened bridges and added lanes. Car travel is advisable but not necessary.

• 13.828424 121.394843 1 San Juan Nepomuceno Parish Church , Burgos Street, Poblacion . It used to be a simple chapel of the town, first a barrio of nearby Rosario until it was separated in 1848. The church was first built in 1843, until it was destroyed by flooding in 1883. The present church, built from stone, was from 1890. ( updated Apr 2020 )
• Poctol mangrove forests , Sitio Pontor, Poctol . They are part of a larger area along Tayabas Bay filled with mangroves ( updated Jan 2020 )
• Mount Daguldul . The highest point in the municipality, at 678   m (2,224   ft). It is reachable from a trail, and a trek takes about 2 hours. ( updated Jan 2020 )

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San Juan, La Union

Dr. Adriel Obar Meimban states in his book, La Union, The Making of a Province, that three friar chroniclers namely Julian Martin, Salvador Fron, and Elviro Perez differ in opinion with regards to San Juan’s date of foundation. Martin claimed San Juan was founded in 1806, Font recorded 1803 while Perez claimed it was established in 1585.

Whichever is the exact date of its founding, it is a fact that San Juan was already a town when La Union was created as a province in 1850 and was one of its 12 original municipalities.

The town of San Juan, formerly called Baratao or Baltao, was formally accepted as a Ministerio de Baratao. It was composed of a federation of settlements of towns, namely the settlements of Bauang, Mapatnag, Allangigan and Dayawan as well as the settlements of San Miguel de Bacnotan, San Juan Bautista de Baltao, San Guillermo de Dalangdang, San Vicente de Balanac and a settlement named Bona or Boa. The center of the Ministerio was at San Juan Bautista de Baltao, now San Juan.

In 1587, Baratao became the center of an encomienda that belonged to Captain Bernardo Sandi. At that time, Father Agustin Niño arrived and transferred the Ministerio to Bauang. The transfer of the Ministerio from San Juan Bautista de Baratao to Bauang made San Juan an alternative visita (a settlement without a parish priest) of Bauang and Bacnotan. It was only in 1807 that a permanent parish priest was assigned to San Juan.

During the revolution of 1896, the whole town was razed to the ground. After the Spanish-American War, a Filipino priest took over the spiritual needs of the parish. Reverend Mariano Gaerlan, a native of San Juan, was the first Filipino priest to be assigned in this town. He supervised the reconstruction of the church that was burned during the revolution. His successor, Reverend Eustaquio Ocampo, continued the construction of the church until it was finished. At that time, San Juan ceased to be a parish. The parish priest assigned in San Fernando took over the spiritual needs of the people. Later in 1918, San Juan became a parish again.

Jose delos Angeles was the first Captain Municipal of San Juan in 1782. During the Second World War, the entire town of San Juan was devastated and the economy of the town was disrupted. After the War, however, San Juan underwent rehabilitation.

At present, San Juan has a total area of 5,186 hectares and also holds a four-kilometer shoreline facing the China Sea. It is famous for its surfing area along the beaches of Urbiztondo with waves suitable for beginner and intermediate surfers. Because of this, the town has been a venue for local and international surfing competitions. Consequently, San Juan has become a major tourist attraction in the Province and greatly contributes to La Union’s tourism.

Aside from the surfing industry, San Juan is also famous for its pottery making industry where clay products made from the indigenous dalikan (clay hearth) are produced.

Agriculture remains to be the main source of livelihood of the people of San Juan. 1,765 hectares are planted with rice, 722 hectares with tobacco and corn and the rest of its agricultural area are planted with vegetables and root crops.

San Juan, with its rolling waves and delightful beach scenes, has become a household name in the surfing and tourism industry. A haven for local and foreign surfers alike, surf lessons are readily available wherein first-timers can be taught the basics in just an hour. The coastline of Urbiztondo Beach is often to be found alive with activities such as skimboarding, Frisbee, and beach volleyball. The La Union Surfing Break, scheduled every end of October, has continually attracted tourists, surfers, college students, beach-lovers, and party-goers, contributing to the rising popularity of this holiday destination.

On the other hand, San Juan is also a laid-back town known for its pottery industry. Earthenware of various sizes and designs, all of superb quality, are sold at Brangay Taboc. At the town center are San Juan’s Municipal Hall, town plaza, and St. John the Baptist Church. Nearby on the seaside is the municipality’s historic Baluarte (watchtower ruins) and farther inland is the untouched Candaroma Hidden Spring.

In honor of its St. John the Baptist, San Juan holds its patronal fiesta every 24th of June, and celebrates its annual town fiesta every third week of December.

Quick Facts

Land Area: 5,186 hectares Population: 38,292 Number of Barangays: 41 Classification: Second Class Municipality Average Annual Income: Php 59,612,510.00

Politically Subdivided into 41 Barangays

Quick Links

Municipality of Agoo

Municipality of Aringay

Municipality of Bacnotan

Municipality of Bagulin

Municipality of Balaoan

Municipality of Bangar

Municipality of Bauang

Municipality of Burgos

Municipality of Caba

Municipality of Luna

Municipality of Naguilian

Municipality of Pugo

Municipality of Rosario

Municipality of San Gabriel

Municipality of San Juan

Municipality of Santol

Municipality of Santo Tomas

Municipality of Sudipen

Municipality of Tubao

La Union Link

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Latest san juan batangas travel requirements for tourists & visitors.

Planning a trip to Laiya in San Juan, Batangas? Here are the latest San Juan, Batangas travel requirements, entry protocols, and travel guidelines for tourists and visitors!

San juan, batangas travel requirements for tourists as of september 2022.

• Be sure to have a confirmed booking with accredited hotels and resorts in Laiya, San Juan Batangas. √ See the list of resorts here!
• Pass through the Municipal Tourism Reception Area and pay the 20 pesos (per person) ecological fee.
• You have to show your corfirmed hotel/resort booking and they will give you a referral slip that you will show to the resort/hotel upon check-in. See photo below for reference.

List of Acrredited Hotels and Resorts in Laiya for Leisure Travelers

• The Henry Resort Taramindu Laiya
• Laiya Riviera Resort and Spa by Cocotel
• Acuatico Beach Resort and Hotel
• Palm Beach Resort
• El Jardin de Zaida
• La Luz Beach Resort & Spa
• Blue Coral Beach Resort
• Acuaverde Beach Resort & Hotel
• Taramindu Beach Garden Inn
• Sabangan Beach Resort
• Laiya Vivo Hotel
• Kamp Mulawin Laiya

To help you plan your trip to Batangas, please check out the following blog posts:

• 30 Best Things to Do in Batangas - In this blog post, I shared my top 30 things to do in Batangas, tourist spots and best places to visit. You may also use this post in creating your Batangas itinerary.
• Top Best Beaches in Batangas - Looking for the most beautiful beaches in Batangas? Here are my must-visit Batangas beaches that are worth visiting. Enjoy an amazing beach holiday in Batangas!
• Best Hotels & Resorts in Batangas - Here are the top best hotels and resorts in Batangas that I have personally stayed at on my previous trips. Check out my reviews on each hotel or resort and more photos on this post.
• Batangas Beach Resorts with Pool - Here is my list of best Batangas beach resorts with swimming pool for your Batangas getaway!
• More Batangas Blog Posts - Check out my other Batangas blog posts here to help you plan your trip!

Top Batangas Tours and Activities

Palm Beach Resort Overnight Stay

Sepoc Beach with Sombrero Island Tour in Batangas

El Jardin de Zaida Day Pass

Island Hopping at Masasa Beach in Batangas

Fun Dive Session in Batangas

• Travel requirements may change from time to time without prior notice. Please coordinate with the local government unit of your destination for the latest updates on travel requirements.
• Some hotels and resorts in San Juan may still require antigen tests. Please coordinate with your booked resort for the latest and updated requirements needed or documents you need to submit before checking-in.
• For inquiries, clarifications, and more information, you may send a message to Tourism of San Juan, Batangas' Facebook Page .

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San Juan, Batangas Travel Requirements for Tourists as of February 1, 2022

For fully vaccinated tourists.

• Confirmed reservation. Walk-ins are not allowed. √ See the list of resorts here!
• Vaccination card.

FOR UNVACCINATED & PARTIALLY-VACCINATED TOURISTS

• Antigen or RT PCR Negative test result for all tourists aged 18 years old and above. √ Click here to know where to get Affordable RT-PCR Test from DOH-Accredited clinics.
• Medical cerificate for tourists aged 3 to 17 years old.
• For Batangas residents, present a medical certificate from a medical doctor or from Barangay Health Worker indicating that the person is not exhibiting any COVID-19 symptoms, and is not a suspected case or under a quarantine period.
• Present your booking confirmation and medical requirements to the Municipal Tourism Reception Area. You could find them at Brgy. Buhaynasapa, San Juan, Batangas.
• Pay for the Ecological Fee of Php 20.00 per person and claim your Ecological Fee tickets together with your Referral Slip.
• You will only need to present your Referral Slip upon arrival at the resort.

Who are not allowed?

• Tourists coming from Alert Level 4 and 5.
• Tourists with comorbidity.
• Pregnant women (with fully vaacinated status).
• Tourists without requirements.

San Juan, Batangas Travel Requirements for Tourists (starting January 7, 2022)

Tourists from alert level 3.

• Confirmed booking reservation from registered resort in San Juan, Batangas. √ See the list of resorts here!
• Antigen or RT PCR Negative test result taken within 72 hours for all ages including fully vaccinated individuals. √ Click here to know where to get Affordable RT-PCR Test from DOH-Accredited clinics.

TOURISTS FROM ALERT LEVEL 1 and 2

• If not fully-vaccinated:
• 0-2 years old: none as long as guardians have complete requirements
• 3-17 years old: medical certificate from a Medical Doctor
• 18 years old and above: Antigen or RT PCR Negative test result taken within 72 hours. √ Click here to know where to get Affordable RT-PCR Test from DOH-Accredited clinics.
• If fully-vaccinated :
• Present your Vaccination Card .

San Juan, Batangas Travel Requirements for Tourists (December 2021)

• Check the community quarantine classification of your point of origin. Only those from GCQ, MGCQ, Alert Levels 1, 2, and 3 areas will be accommodated.
• Tourists with underlying conditions and pregnant women are not allowed even if coming from a GCQ/MGCQ area and/or fully vaccinated.
• Walk-in tourists are still not allowed. Please book first with any of the registered resorts before traveling to San Juan. √ See the list of resorts here!
• San Juan, Batangas is currently open to all ages. Please see requirements below:
• 18 years old and above:
• For fully vaccinated tourists (2nd dose was received for at least 14 days) - Present your Vaccination Card .
• For unvaccinated or partially-vaccinated - Present an Antigen or RT PCR Negative test result taken within 72 hours. √ Click here to know where to get Affordable RT-PCR Test from DOH-Accredited clinics.
• For unvaccinated or partially-vaccinated Batangas residents, no need for antigen or rt-pcr tests, just present a Barangay Health Certificate .

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Looking for Budget Travel Guide Blogs, Hotel Reviews, and Sample DIY Itineraries? Welcome to Pinoy Adventurista, "Your Next Ultimate Adventure Starts Here!" Pinoy Adventurista is one of the Top Travel Blogs in the Philippines and the World. In 2013, he visited all the 81 provinces in the Philippines.

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San Juan Celebrates Town Fiesta, Gears Up For Star Magic’s Hot Summer ’24

Joel James Cubillas May 14, 2024 Leave a comment 70 Views

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The municipality of San Juan Batangas is currently celebrating the feast of its patron saint— San Juan Nepomuceno.

“Viva San Juan Nepomuceno 2024” is a month-long celebration of San Juan, the patron saint of confessors. As early as May 7, the Parokya ni San Juan Nepomuceno has been offering novenas and holy masses attended by local church-goers and tourists. Last May 13, a coffee painting workshop and an on-the-spot coffee painting contest under Maestro Carlos “Caloy” Alferez Castro was attended by young artists from all over the province. The next day, May 14, townsfolk and visitors witnessed a ground and fluvial parade (hosted by Aurum Beach Resort) that honor San Juan and the blessing of bountiful harvests and thriving tourism economy.

On May 15, La Luz Resort will host ABS-CBN Star Magic’s Hot Summer ’24 attended by ABS’ famous celebrities. “Ito ang isa sa pinakamalaki naming preparations kasi kasama din dito ang Bini, (a hot, trending girl group and performers behind hit single Pantropiko.), San Juan Chief Tourism Officer said in an interview with wowbatangas. “Pero nagtulong-tulong ang mga resorts natin tulad ng La Luz, Virgin Beach Resort, Acuatico, Acua Verde, Blue Coral, and Palm Beach to accommodate the guests. As of writing, tickets for the event have been sold out. The Munting Ginoo at Binibini ng San Juan 2024, an LGBTQIA + project, shall also be held the same day at the municipal gymnasium.

May 16, the day of the Feast of San Juan, shall witness a Concelebrated Mass and” “Sing-say dine sa Bayan ni Juan” at Rizal Street in Poblacion.

photo from: Tourism of San Juan Batangas facebook page

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The For-Profit City That Might Come Crashing Down

The dream of Próspera, founded by a U.S. corporation off the coast of Honduras, was to escape government control. The Honduran government wants it gone.

Ricardo González, legal consultant for Honduras Próspera Inc., looking out on the Honduran island of Roatán. Credit... Brian Finke for The New York Times

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By Rachel Corbett

• Aug. 28, 2024

Jorge Colindres, a freshly cologned and shaven lawyer, handed me a hard hat to take the elevator to the 14th floor of what is now the tallest building on the Honduran island of Roatán — nearly twice what the local building code allows. When construction is complete, Duna Residences will house 82 units overlooking a jungle of palm trees, the Caribbean Sea and several other new buildings that the Honduran government considers illegal.

Listen to this article, read by Frankie Corzo

If Próspera were a normal town, Colindres would be considered its mayor; his title here is “technical secretary.” As we looked out over a clearing in the trees in February, he pointed to the small office complex where he works collecting taxes and managing public finances for the city’s 2,000 or so physical residents and e-residents, many of whom have paid a fee for the option of living in Próspera or remotely incorporating a business there. Nearby is a manufacturing plant that is slated to build modular houses along the coast designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. About a mile in the other direction are some of the city’s businesses: a Bitcoin cafe and education center, a genetics clinic, a scuba shop. A delivery service for food and medical supplies will deploy its drones from this rooftop.

There’s not much else to see yet. But the Delaware-based company that founded this experimental town in 2017 has raised $120 million in investments — including from venture-capital funds backed by the Silicon Valley billionaires Peter Thiel, Sam Altman and Marc Andreessen — to transform the territory, about twice the size of Monaco, into the most developed start-up city in the world. Built in a semiautonomous jurisdiction known as a ZEDE (a Spanish acronym for Zone for Employment and Economic Development), Próspera is a private, for-profit city, with its own government that courts foreign investors through low taxes and light regulation. Businesses can choose a regulatory framework from a menu of 36 countries or customize their own.

A California company offers a Montessori education for approximately 60 students. Security is provided by a private firm of armed guards. An arbitration center staffed by three retired Arizona judges handles dispute resolution. (In order to enter the jurisdiction, I was told I needed to sign an “agreement of coexistence” binding myself to 4,202 pages of rules, violations of which would be subject to the jurisdictional authority of the arbitration center.)

Próspera has become particularly well known for the zone’s experimental medical facilities, which run clinical trials unburdened by F.D.A. standards. The week of my visit, Patri Friedman, grandson of the economist Milton Friedman and the founder of a start-up-cities fund that invested in Próspera, had a chip with his Tesla key implanted into his hand. On a previous trip he brushed his teeth with genetically modified bacteria purported to prevent cavities. Another time he was injected with a protein booster intended to make him “stronger and faster,” as he put it at a conference in Roatán that weekend.

“I can tell you when Próspera became most real for me,” Friedman told the audience. “When I sat down to fill out my informed-consent forms that said, like, ‘This agreement is adjudicated under the laws of the Próspera ZEDE; any disputes are arbitrated by the Próspera Arbitration Center.’ Like, you are under a different set of laws.”

There are more than 5,400 of these special economic zones in the world, ranging on a spectrum from free ports for duty-free trading all the way to the special administrative region of Hong Kong. About 1,000 zones have cropped up in just the past decade, including dozens of start-up cities — sometimes called charter cities — most of them in developing nations like Zambia and the Philippines. Some have actually grown into major urban centers, like Shenzhen, which went from a fishing village to one of China’s largest cities, with a G.D.P. of $482 billion, after it was designated a special economic zone in 1980.

Each zone offers a degree of escape from government oversight and taxation, a prospect that has excited libertarian and anarcho-capitalist thinkers at least since Ayn Rand imagined a free-market utopia called Galt’s Gulch in “Atlas Shrugged.” Today, escalating clashes between the government and Big Tech — like the S.E.C.’s regulatory war on crypto, or the Federal Aviation Administration’s repeated investigations into SpaceX — have spurred some Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to seek increasingly splintered-off hubs of sovereignty. And with government dysfunction preventing reforms even in wealthy cities like San Francisco, locked in a decades-long affordable-housing crisis, and New York City, which just lost out on as much as $1 billion when Albany scrapped a 17-years-in-the-making congestion pricing plan that would have funded public transit, it’s not hard to see the appeal of starting from scratch.

In promotional materials, Próspera markets itself to “21st-century pioneers” craving not just laissez-faire policies but also “good times and Caribbean vibes.” Direct flights from Miami and Houston can transport these digital nomads to Roatán in less than three hours. Then, from a chaise longue on the beach, they can register a business with the tap of a button. Although only one residential building has been built so far, a forthcoming eco-condo was during my visit courting buyers seeking “more personal freedom” and less “political drama.” Próspera’s original investment plan projected that by 2030 the city would be home to 38,000 residents, and that foreign direct investment in the country would top $500 million by next year.

But plenty of other people find Próspera’s goal — “building the future of human governance: privately run and for-profit” — unsettling. Critics have described it as a neocolonial state within a state, or an example of corporate monarchy, where yacht-owning C.E.O.s exploit land and labor in a poor country. Keller Easterling, the urbanist and architectural theorist, considers Próspera a city in name only, akin to “say, Mattress City.” Really, she says, the zones are low-tax, deregulated marketplaces.

As we peered over the edge of the tower’s rooftop, I considered the story of a subcontractor who was working at the apartment tower at night two months earlier. The power had gone out, and he walked to the edge of the floor to yell down to his crew to turn on a generator, but took a step too far and fell to his death. If companies choose their own regulatory frameworks, as they do in Próspera, who holds them accountable if they endanger or harm one of their employees?

“Próspera ZEDE has its own set of labor systems,” Colindres said when I asked him about it later. He told me the worker’s family was compensated appropriately — receiving at least as much as was required under Honduran law — but he declined to disclose details. If an independent investigation took place, its findings have not been released to the public. After all, the point of a place like Próspera is that there isn’t really a “public” to speak of.

This lack of transparency is one common criticism of Próspera, and today, it’s unclear whether this experiment can continue. In recent years, vehement opposition from the Honduran government and neighboring communities has imperiled Próspera’s future. Now its fate — and that of the private-cities movement writ large — hangs in the balance of a high-stakes case before an international tribunal.

There are about three dozen charter cities currently operating in the world, according to an estimate from the Adrianople Group, an advisory firm that concentrates on special economic zones. Several others are under development, including the East Solano Plan, run by a real estate corporation that has spent the last seven years buying up $900 million of ranch land in the Bay Area to build a privatized alternative to San Francisco; Praxis, a forthcoming “cryptostate” on the Mediterranean; and the Free Republic of Liberland , a three-square-mile stretch of unclaimed floodplain between Serbia and Croatia. Many of the same ideologically aligned names — Balaji Srinivasan, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Friedman — recur as financial backers; Patrik Schumacher, principal of Zaha Hadid Architects and a critic of public housing, is behind several of their urban (or metaversal) designs.

Srinivasan, the former Coinbase chief technology officer and now an adviser to Pronomos Capital, Friedman’s fund to build start-up cities, argued in his 2022 book “The Network State” that these new business-friendly hubs would soon compete with nation-states and, one day, replace them. “The Network State” was inspired, he said, by the state of Israel. “That country was started by a book,” he tweeted in 2022, referring to Theodor Herzl’s 1896 manifesto, “The Jewish State.” “You can found a tribe,” Srinivasan said on a podcast. “What I’m really calling for is something like tech Zionism — when a community forms online and then gathers in physical space to form a ‘reverse diaspora.’”

The concept might have stayed on the fringes of libertarian and neoreactionary forums had Paul Romer, who would go on to be the chief economist of the World Bank and win the Nobel Prize, not made charter cities the subject of an influential 2009 TED Talk. He projected a photo of students in an African country doing their homework under streetlights, explaining that their government required the electric company to provide power at such low prices that the company decided not to service the homes in their area at all. When the president tried to reform the system, he went on, consumers and business leaders pushed back, and ultimately, nothing changed. Romer argued that charter cities would give developing countries a chance to prosper by ceding uninhabited territory to wealthier nations to develop.

This ruling country would act as a “guarantor” to the host country and write its own laws and regulations, which would attract private companies to invest and build the cities. In turn, jobs, technology and educational opportunities would pour into the host country, which would share in the revenue, too. Locals would stop leaving for richer countries, migrants would come to the zone, a virtuous cycle would take hold and students wouldn’t need to do their homework in the streets. “The city can be built,” Romer said in his talk. “And we can scale this model. We can go do it over and over again.”

Around the same time that Romer was delivering his TED Talk, Honduran soldiers stormed the home of the country’s left-wing president, Manuel Zelaya. They led him outside at gunpoint, still in his pajamas, and put him on a plane to Costa Rica. Zelaya had been planning to hold a public referendum on reforming the Constitution, which his critics saw as an attempt to illegally extend term limits. Shortly after the coup, the military held another election; it put into office the conservative candidate Porfirio Lobo, who lost the previous contest to Zelaya. Several nations, including the United States, questioned the legitimacy of an election staged by leaders of the coup.

President Lobo’s chief of staff, the Harvard-educated lawyer Octavio Sánchez, saw Romer’s TED Talk and thought it was just what Honduras needed to achieve economic prosperity. Sánchez arranged a meeting in Miami among Romer, Lobo and the president of Congress, Juan Orlando Hernández. Lobo told Romer that to do something as significant as he proposed — to create a zone that would replace Honduran laws with those of a wealthier nation — they’d need to amend the Constitution.

Romer visited Tegucigalpa soon after. Honduras, a country where over half the population lived in poverty and 75,000 people left each year for better opportunities in the United States, was an ideal testing ground for his vision. When Romer returned home, he recorded a follow-up TED Talk titled “The World’s First Charter City?”

A tumultuous three years followed: Romer and the oversight board he helped set up were sidelined, and the Honduran Supreme Court initially rejected the constitutional amendment. But Congress, led by Hernández, dismissed the four opposing judges in what some critics called a “technical coup.” (Hernández, who succeeded Lobo as president of Honduras, continued to have a career marred by corruption and was recently sentenced to 45 years in a United States federal prison for drug trafficking.) In 2013, Honduras amended its constitution to allow for the creation of autonomous zones, following China and the United Arab Emirates.

I met Colindres outside his office on a “Wellness Wednesday.” Catering staff had set out fruit and granola bars on the counter of an open-air cafeteria at the city’s headquarters, a small complex of three interconnected buildings on a manicured tropical lawn. A guard in black combat fatigues with a double-barreled rifle paced near a porch swing. Colindres, who is 31, peeled an orange as he began to tell me about his family’s history in Honduras. One of his grandfathers fought in the Honduran armed forces against communism during the Cold War. Later, his uncle, the president of the chamber of commerce, was taken hostage by Communist guerrillas. Colindres’s hero is the family’s capitalist success story: his great-grandfather Constantino Marinakys, who immigrated from Greece after World War I and built a fortune, in part by opening grocery stores during the country’s banana boom in the early 20th century.

In the late 1800s, Honduras owed immense debt to Britain, and began offering land and financial incentives to attract foreign investment. Eventually, U.S. banana companies, like Cuyamel and United Fruit (now Chiquita), built railroads, port infrastructure and other projects in exchange for land. By the beginning of World War I, O. Henry had named the country the original “banana republic.” The six largest banana companies owned more than a million acres of fertile land on Honduras’s northern coast, and in 1911, one orchestrated a coup to install a puppet government.

Where many see a story about exploitation, Colindres describes one of private-sector productivity. As workers migrated to the coasts to work, the plantations grew into small cities with their own housing, schools, hospitals and stores. “Back then there was very poor infrastructure, and so when the banana companies came everything had to be done,” Colindres said. “No roads, no electricity — all of what we consider public infrastructure in Honduras, it was put in by the private sector.”

Colindres’s political views started hardening as a teenager living through the coup of 2009. He went to law school and came to the conclusion that he’d have to leave Honduras for the United States if he wanted to have a fulfilling career. But then came news that the ZEDE constitutional amendment had passed. Honduran law preserved national authority over a few fields, like criminal law, but granted the zones broad freedom to establish their own courts, fiscal policies and labor and environmental protections.

In 2014, as required by the amendment, Juan Orlando Hernández appointed a group to oversee the ZEDEs. Early members included a granddaughter of the final Austrian emperor and a band of Republicans from the U.S. that included the former Reagan speechwriter Mark Klugmann, the anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, the former Reagan aide Faith Whittlesey, the libertarian economist Mark Skousen and Ronald Reagan’s son Michael Reagan. A couple of years later, Honduran lawmakers heard about an Arizona entrepreneur named Erick Brimen who was lobbying Washington to make creative use of the U.S. Constitution’s Compact Clause to pass a bill establishing low-regulation “prosperity zones.” Brimen was having a hard time implementing his vision in the States, so took the Hondurans up on their offer to develop a zone like the one Romer imagined, but run by a private company rather than by another nation.

Brimen, who grew up in a wealthy family in Venezuela until he moved to the United States at 12, met Gabriel Delgado, a Guatemalan entrepreneur who had already identified a couple of plots of land in Roatán as potential sites. In 2017, they decided to work together, with Brimen acting as chief executive and Delgado heading up fund-raising and real estate development. They secured early investments from Friedman’s Pronomos Capital and an unnamed investor “behind” SpaceX. But their success in establishing the first ZEDE, they said, is due in part to keeping their ideological beliefs quiet. “Instead of saying we are trying to create a libertopia,” Brimen told the libertarian magazine Reason in 2021, “we shifted the conversation away from advancing a political ideology toward, yes, liberty, but as a tool to development.” After a brainstorming session, Brimen came up with a name that might accomplish that: Honduras Próspera, Inc.

When Colindres heard the news that the project had broken ground, he reached out to Brimen, who expressed interest in his 2019 paper “Make Honduras Great: Charter Cities as a Development Program.”

“He said, ‘I also want to make Honduras great,’” Colindres recalled. He promised Brimen his support. “Let me bring all my contacts and all my clients and everybody to join,” he told him. “And then that’s what I did.”

Próspera has now incorporated 222 businesses into the ZEDE, including an outsource staffing agency and scores of experimental medical centers. Minicircle, founded by two young biohackers, offers a product that they say might cure Alzheimer’s and suppress all tumors; Symbiont Labs manufactures implants that turn people into “self-sovereign cyborgs”; the Bay Islands Fitness and Transformation Center offers affordable semaglutide injections; and the Global Alliance for Regenerative Medicine provides stem-cell treatments. (A man sitting next to me on my flight from Roatán showed me severe burns on his arms that he’d come to treat at the clinic.) While I was visiting, a “pop-up city” called Vitalia used a dome it had erected on Próspera’s grounds to host events for biotech innovators who want to “make death optional.”

Much of the activity at Próspera takes place not in the area where the Duna tower stands and Colindres works but a 15-minute drive away at Pristine Bay, a green, gated golf community and beach club. Starting in 2021, Próspera began incorporating parts of the resort into the zone. Down by the tennis courts, I saw Vitalia’s white-tented dome, though organizers did not allow me to attend any of its events. Reason wouldn’t grant me access to a conference it was hosting at the hotel either. So I hung out by the pool, and down the street at AmityAge Academy, an old restaurant that a Slovakian math tutor had turned into a Bitcoin education center and cafe.

That’s where I met Zussel Ramos, at the time AmityAge’s 25-year-old lead educator, next to a bookshelf stocked with Ludwig von Mises’s “Bureaucracy,” Ayn Rand’s “Capitalism” and Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life .” I bought a coffee — the barista let me pay with “fiat” paper money on a one-time basis — and then Ramos took me on a tour. On the walls downstairs hung a Bitcoin mining machine, a portrait of Guy Fawkes astride a bucking green stallion and a map of Roatán with colored squares of paper marking the dozens of businesses that now accept Bitcoin, largely thanks to Ramos’s door-to-door persistence.

Ramos told me she couldn’t wait to move to Próspera — probably to the Duna tower. Then she’d apply for physical residency, giving her the right to vote for ZEDE leadership — one vote for every square meter of land she owned, under the current rules. For now, very few people actually live full time in the ZEDE, which is a checkerboard of territory across both the island and the mainland. It started out with 58 acres in Roatán, but since a ZEDE’s territory doesn’t need to be contiguous, it has added 385 acres in La Ceiba on the mainland, followed by another 239 acres of Roatán’s Port Royal and then 322 acres of Pristine Bay.

Just how much land the Próspera ZEDE plans to absorb is the source of much of the conflict that now vexes the project. Early promotional images sparked outrage for depicting the north coast of the island dotted with skyscrapers, futuristic houses and yacht-filled ports, rather than the wooden shacks and jungle that exist there now. One image that forecast the growth of Próspera from a village to a town to a city made it look as if the project had “started engulfing the areas around it,” says Ricardo González, a legal consultant for Honduras Próspera Inc. “It was taken literally” by the people who lived in those areas, he says, but it shouldn’t have been. “Everything is voluntary, we cannot just pick up your land and say now it’s part of us.”

But it is also true that the ZEDE law allows the Honduran government to compel landowners to sell to a zone, so long as they are paid fair market value for the property. Brimen insists that Próspera would never take advantage of that provision, because it violates the sanctity of private-property rights, and that the company has self-imposed “the highest possible limitations on this in its charter.” Nevertheless, the provision’s existence set in motion a spectacular series of events as Próspera began incorporating land.

The Duna tower stands next to a fork in the road, with one path leading to the Próspera gate, manned by guards carrying guns and contracts, and the other winding down a dirt path to a small fishing village called Crawfish Rock. Roatán, thanks to its thriving tourism industry, generates more money than many parts of Honduras, but Crawfish Rock — home to a Black, English-speaking community (Roatán is a former British colony) — is an exception. Turquoise and peach houses sag and lean on stilts, their roofs patchworks of corrugated-metal scraps.

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, vice president of Crawfish Rock’s patronato , or community board, it was 2019 when the first Próspera representatives came to the community, informing them of plans to develop a nearby resort. “It’s quite normal for us to have this kind of restricted, gated community popping up,” Cárdenas said. The island is full of them. They also wanted to do community development, they told her, and offered small-business loans to Crawfish Rock residents. But then odd things started to happen, Cárdenas said.

Próspera stationed armed guards on the road. Then Brimen tried to form a new patronato that Cárdenas said was stacked with Próspera employees. (A Próspera representative disputed this.) In 2020, Cárdenas received a voice message from someone in the community that said, “This project is not a normal project.” So she and Luisa Connor, the president of the patronato, began to research Próspera. They learned about the ZEDE law and about the involuntary sale of land. “By no means did they explain to us” what a ZEDE was, Connor says. “They came as a normal resort they were going to build next to the community.” (A Próspera representative disputed this, saying the company held multiple town halls describing the project to residents.)

Distrust spread among members of the community, who felt they had been lied to about Próspera’s intentions. In September 2020, Brimen tried to address the conflict by organizing a meeting in Crawfish Rock. Connor wrote a letter asking him to postpone it, because Covid was spreading rapidly on the island and the hospitals there were full. Brimen, who says he was invited by village elders, held the meeting that evening anyway, accompanied by guards. He stood on a second-story porch reading into a microphone the parts of the ZEDE law pertaining to land expropriation. “That’s when all hell broke loose,” Cárdenas said. People rushed up the steps, some shouting that he should leave, others to let him speak; shoves were exchanged, and Brimen’s MacBook tumbled off the railing. He yelled at people to back up and stop violating his right to social distance. Trucks of police officers arrived.

Brimen later said that, before he was interrupted, he was trying to point out the ways the law restricts, rather than promotes, the forced sale of land. But a video of the encounter circulated throughout Honduran media, and the fear of expropriation became a galvanizing message used by anti-ZEDE groups on the mainland and the other Bay Islands. From that point on, the narrative changed from “ZEDEs are bad because they are violating constitutional rights,” González says, to the more forceful “ZEDEs are bad because they’re going to take your land.”

A national protest movement was born, and prominent politicians turned against the project. In 2021, Xiomara Castro, the wife of the ousted President Zelaya, made repealing the ZEDEs a central promise of her election campaign. The zones became associated with the corruption of Juan Orlando Hernández, the president at the time, whom many Hondurans now revile. Castro won with a clear majority. In 2022, Honduras’s Congress unanimously repealed the law and passed a constitutional reform that would abolish the three existing ZEDEs. “Never again will we carry the stereotype of the banana republic,” Castro declared to the U.N. General Assembly a few months later.

There was one problem, however: Congress, mired in competing legislative priorities, failed to ratify the reform. Furthermore, the original ZEDE law guaranteed the companies 50 years of legal stability — no matter what changes were made after a zone was founded. The net result is that Próspera is in a state of legal limbo.

Delgado seemed bewildered by the staunch opposition to Próspera. How had his dream to enrich Central America become a political piñata? “We’re not crooks,” he told me. “We’re just guys trying to get something good done.” He said he was inspired to help found Próspera after reading Machiavelli’s writings on the impossibility of reforming a system from within. “The idea is that if you go to a place where nothing, nobody has a stake, there’s no entrenched interests, you can make really deep reforms that won’t affect any of the players,” he said. Years of dysfunction and corruption would be replaced by radically simple governance. A free market and political stability would attract top innovators and investors from the West while empowering Latin America’s legions of microentrepreneurs — the guys on the side of the road selling oranges or “a chicken leg in a bag,” Delgado said — to grow real businesses.

Crawfish Rock, home to a Black, English-speaking community. Conflict with Próspera over the ZEDE law sparked a nationwide protest movement.

But in seeking to sidestep politics, Próspera instead ran straight into them. The endemic corruption in Honduras, the sort of thing Próspera was supposed to combat, was also what enabled its creation and has plagued its pursuit of legitimacy. For Hondurans, the prospect of American capitalists promising prosperity may instead resurrect fears of exploitation and dispossession. Despite Próspera’s fantasy of exit, it uses roads, hospitals and ports built by the municipal government, and it shares an economy and ecosystem with its neighbors in Crawfish Rock. The national government that granted its right to exist, meanwhile, may still take it away.

In 2022, the government began stripping Próspera of some of the special privileges it was granted under its predecessors. It halted the company’s tax-exempt customs service, allowing the zone to continue to import goods only if it paid the same duties as the rest of Honduras. Colindres said that the National Banking and Insurance Commission also pressured Honduran banks to shut down accounts of Próspera businesses and bar lenders from financing its projects. Duna Residences, for example, “was going to be financed by one of the biggest banks of Honduras,” Colindres said. But once President Castro came to power, the financing evaporated and the building was delayed. “The third tower would already be under construction if they hadn’t done that.”

At the end of 2022, Honduras Próspera Inc. and its affiliates filed an astronomical $10.775 billion lawsuit against the state in a World Bank tribunal called the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Próspera is thought to have a good chance of prevailing in part, critics say, because the court is biased toward corporations, which can bring suit against nation-states but cannot be sued by them.

A win for Próspera could demonstrate sufficient legal stability to attract investors and set the precedent for new cities around the world. If it loses, start-up city founders will need to look for new legal strategies. Colindres said that his mission now is to try to persuade the government, “whether this government or the next government,” to stop “harassing” the banks and let them finance Próspera projects. That could be the government of Juan Orlando Hernández’s wife, Ana García de Hernández, who would soon announce her candidacy for the 2025 presidential election.

With building delayed, the view from the Duna tower’s rooftop looked like little more than a construction zone — a patch of dirt littered with piles of two-by-fours and wooden pallets. There were as many sheds as finished buildings. Still, some think Próspera may already be too far along to fail: There is simply too much capital already invested, too many commitments made, to have them torn apart in Tegucigalpa. The government is making “emotional arguments more than anything else,” González told me. “If they had the legal right to do what they’re trying to accomplish, they’d have already done it.”

Read by Frankie Corzo

Narration produced by Tanya Pérez and Krish Seenivasan

Engineered by Anj Vancura

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Municipal Officials

HON. ILDEBRANDO D. SALUD

Municipal Mayor

      HON. OCTAVIO ANTONIO L. MARASIGAN

Municipal Vice Mayor

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATION AND ENERGY

COMMITTEE ON TRADE AND INDUSTRY

Committee on Public Works and Infrastructure

Committee on Health and Sanitation

Committee on Barangay Affairs

Committee on Ways and Means

Committee on Youth and Sports

Committee on Women and Family

HON. WENILO G. ADA

SANGGUNIANG BAYAN MEMBER

Committee on Human Rights

Committee on Agriculture

Committee on Disaster Management and Risk Reduction

Vice Chairman

Committee on Cooperatives

Committee on Local Economic Enterprises and Development, Market, Slaughter and Cemetery

HON. FLORENCIO M. DE CHAVEZ

Committee on H uman Rights

Committee on Peace and Order, Public Safety & Dangerous Drugs

Committee on Local Economic Enterprise and Development, Market, Slaughter and Cemetery

HON. ANGELO LUIS T. MARASIGAN

Committee on Finance, Budget and Appropriation

Committee on Education and Civil Service

Committee on Gender Equality and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex

Committee on Transportation and Communication and Energy

Committee on Environmental Protection

Committee on Foreign and Inter LGU and Public Relations

Committee on Laws, Rules, and Priviledges

Committee on Tourism, Culture and Arts

Committee on Housing and Land Utilization

Committee on Trade and Industry

HON. ROWENA M. MAGADIA

Chairwoman 

Committee on Senior Citizen and Person with Disability

Committee on Tourism, Culture, and Arts

Committee on Gender Equality and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender , Queer, and Intersex

Committee on Social Services and Minorities

HON. GERARDO R. TANTAY JR

Committee on Social Service s and Minorities

Committee on Peace and Order, Public Safety and Dangerous Drugs

Committee on Laws, Rules, and Privileges

Committee on Peace and Order, Public Safety, and Dangerous Drugs

HON. MEYNARDO V. ROBLES

Committee on Barangay Affa irs

Committee in Public Works and Infrastructures

Committee on Finance, Budget, and Appropriation

Committee on Local Economic Enterprise and Development, Market, Slaughter, and Cemetery

Committee on Foreign and Inter LGU, and Public Relations

Committee on Gender Equality, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and intersex

HON. RODELLO A. DE CHAVEZ

Committee o n Public Works and Infrastructure

Committee on Finance , Budget, and Appropriation

Committee on Tr ansportation, Communication, and Energy

Committee on Gender Equality and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex

HON. GRENALYN V. VIRTUSIO LLB

Committee on Foreign and Inter-LGU and Public Relations

Committee on T ransportation, Communication, and Energy

Committee on Gender Equality, and Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex

HON. WIVIN R. LLANA

Committee Barangay Affairs

Committee on Peace a nd Order, Public Safety and Dangerous Drugs

Committee on Senior Citizen and Persons with Disability

HON. JOEL S. REY JR.

Committee on Y outh and Sports

Committee on