Paete Wood Carving Workshop & Tour

Paete in Laguna province has been the wood carving capital of the Philippines since the 17th century, when Franciscan friars settled the lakeside town and discovered that the local Tagalog community had extraordinary aptitude for translating European religious imagery into carved wood. Five centuries later, Paete's carving tradition is more alive than ever — the town of 20,000 people has an estimated 3,000 active carvers, from master craftsmen who produce santos (religious images) sold to churches across Asia, to cooperative workshops supplying decorative woodcraft to Manila's furniture industry.

The tour begins with a walking circuit of Paete's main street, where virtually every house has a workshop visible from the street. Master carvers — many from families with five or more generations of continuous practice — work in open-fronted rooms on everything from massive life-sized crucifixes destined for cathedral altars to delicate palosapis wood relief panels carved with indigenous baybayin script. The sound of chisels is the town's ambient soundtrack. Your guide introduces you to two or three workshops of different specialisations, with owners explaining their craft, the woods they use (kamagong, molave, palosapis), and the market for their work.

The highlight for participants is the guided relief carving workshop — a 60–90 minute hands-on session where you learn basic chisel technique on a soft practice wood block under the supervision of a master carver. Most participants leave with a basic design — a leaf pattern, a simple animal, or a geometric motif — carved in a small block they can take home as a souvenir. No experience required; the master carvers are patient teachers with decades of teaching visitors. Paete is a 20-minute boat ride from Pagsanjan — the two combine perfectly into a full day on the Laguna de Bay lakeside.