Qualla: Coron, Palawan

Coron, Palawan: Introduction

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jowelsalibio, CC BY-SA 3.0. Somewhere beneath the warm waters off Coron Island, a dozen Japanese warships sit upright on the seafloor, their hulls encrusted with coral and patrolled by schools of barracuda. On September 24, 1944, American carrier-based aircraft caught the Imperial Japanese Navy's supply fleet sheltering in Coron Bay, sinking ship after ship in a devastating raid. Eight decades later, these wrecks have become one of the world's great diving destinations -- and the unlikely foundation of a tourist economy that transformed a quiet fishing municipality in northern Palawan into the commercial capital of the Calamian Archipelago.

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Image: Jowelsalibio | CC BY-SA 3.0

Coron, Palawan: A Name Shaped Like a Pot

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Haundreis, CC BY 2.0. Before the Spanish arrived, the Tagbanua people called this place by a word that sounded like "Corong" -- their term for a type of pot. The Spaniards adapted it to Penon de Coron, and by 1902 the name had been trimmed to simply Coron. But the municipality's original name, Bancuan...

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Image: Haundreis | CC BY 2.0

Coron, Palawan: War Beneath the Waves

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Francesco, CC BY 2.0. The Japanese warships that draw divers today were not battleships or destroyers but supply and logistics vessels -- the unglamorous backbone of a naval fleet. When American planes struck on that September morning in 1944, they sent tankers, freighters, and auxiliary craft to the ...

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Image: Francesco | CC BY 2.0

Coron, Palawan: From Dynamite to Dive Flags

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit H.abanil, CC BY-SA 3.0. Coron's economy has reinvented itself more than once. During the Japanese occupation, manganese mining at Singay Mines in Barangay San Nicolas provided the dominant industry. After the war, commercial fishing drove prosperity through the 1970s and into the 1990s -- until blast fi...

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Image: H.abanil | CC BY-SA 3.0

Coron, Palawan: Seven Sins and a Blue Park

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Patrickroque01, CC BY-SA 4.0. Just offshore from Coron's coast, seven small limestone islets rise from the water like a scattered handful of emeralds. This is Siete Pecados -- the Seven Sins -- a marine park that earned the Blue Park Award from the Marine Conservation Institute in April 2024, one of only thre...

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Image: Patrickroque01 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Coron, Palawan: Islands at the Crossroads

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ryan Sia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Coron municipality occupies the eastern half of Busuanga Island, the entirety of Coron Island, and roughly 50 smaller islets stretching from Tara Island in the northeast to Canipo Island in the south. Together they form the heart of the Calamian Archipelago, a chain that separate...

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Image: Ryan Sia | CC BY-SA 4.0