Igorot Stone Kingdom

Structure: Igorot Stone Kingdom

Location: Long long Benguet Road, Baguio Benguet

Year Opened: The attraction was opened to the public in May 2021. It was shut down temporarily on November 7, 2022, due to safety and permit violations.

Description: The Igorot Stone Kingdom is a stone-formed castle structure that gives the tourist a deja vu feeling he is strolling Bangkok's Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The humongous structure was built by Pio Velasco ... his inspiration being the first to use Igorot's stone-laying acumen ... this side of Philippines. It is rooted in the legend of Sab-angan, an ancient Igorot Kingdom.

The castle is proud to showcase its Stone walls which is known locally as riprap. It is a local and native engineering technique of supporting mountainsides from landslides using rocks and mud.  What is surprising to note is that Pio and his men had painstakingly and meticulously piled up the boulders just like stacking wood blocks just like in the Jenga game (Jenga comes from the word kujenga which means to build) to form stone walls. 

This building artistry is still being employed in modern times, but cement comes in handy to take the place of clay and mud as a binding element.