Capas
Introduction
Capas is a municipality in the province of Tarlac, Philippines. It is a place of some size, home to a substantial population.
Before you go
Capas is a place where history runs deep. It was founded as a Pampanga town in 1711 by Augustinian friars and later became part of Tarlac, and it is remembered for the Death March, in which surrendered Filipino and American soldiers were brought by train to Capas Station before being forced to march to Camp O'Donnell. The American military kept a presence in parts of Capas as an extension of its Clark garrison until 1991, and the Philippine military still uses the Crow Valley site for ammunition, ordnance and explosives-related exercises. The town is largely rural but has grown to the point of overshadowing Tarlac City, and its character reflects both the Kapampangan and indigenous Aeta communities who live there. Near the foothills of Mount Pinatubo, the planned development of New Clark City is taking shape, patterned after Putrajaya and New Songdo City and intended to become the country's administrative capital once completed. For local information before you travel, the Capas municipal government website is the place to check.Getting there
Capas sits along the main corridor between Manila, Ilocos and the Luzon Cordilleras, so reaching it by road is straightforward. Train service ended in the late 1980s, and while a commuter railway is planned to serve New Clark City, no construction has begun on that segment. The nearest airport is in Angeles (CRK). Multiple bus lines run from Manila to northern Luzon and stop at Capas. Because the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway largely bypasses the town, check the destination sign on the bus's windshield: choose one marked "via Capas", not "via SCTEX", or you will miss it. Buses that do stop typically exit near Concepcion, call at Capas, then continue north on the MacArthur Highway. Jeepneys also link Capas with Angeles via Bamban, and with Tarlac City. By car, take SCTEX from Manila or Angeles and exit at Concepcion, turning left onto the highway into town; a spur to New Clark City gives access to the Death March shrine and the jumping-off point for Mount Pinatubo. A road connection from Zambales, beginning at Botolan, is under construction and will eventually run scenically through the foothills of Mount Pinatubo to meet the existing road near the shrine.Getting around
Capas is a large, spread-out municipality, and getting around it usually means taking a tricycle or a car. Its main sights — the Capas National Shrine, the Death March markers, and the jump-off points for Mount Pinatubo treks — are not clustered together, so plan on arranging transport rather than walking between them. Tricycles are the standard way to cover short hops within town and between nearby barangays, while cars are the most practical option for reaching the shrine, New Clark City, and the Pinatubo foothills. A two-lane concrete road spurs off the MacArthur Highway and serves New Clark City and the Pinatubo foothills; it currently dead-ends at the river northeast of the Pinatubo caldera, with construction ongoing to extend it into a scenic highway linking to Zambales. There is no working rail service: train service to the town ended in the late 1980s, and although New Clark City is planned to be served by the North-South Commuter Railway, no construction has begun on the segment that would serve the area, so treat rail as unavailable.
Buses are the main intercity option, since Capas sits along the corridor between Manila, Ilocos, and the Cordilleras. Watch the destination sign on the windshield: look for buses marked "via Capas," as those marked "via SCTEX" skip the town entirely. Multiple bus lines run from Manila to northern Luzon and stop at Capas, often exiting the expressway nearby at Concepcion before continuing north on the MacArthur Highway, and other operators connect the town with Manila Cubao. Taxis and ride-hailing apps are viable for longer trips, including runs to and from Clark, with operators such as Blue Taxi Clark, Maxim, Angeles City Taxi, and Grab — most useful for airport transfers and for reaching sites like the national shrine or New Clark City when you don't have your own vehicle. Within New Clark City, a self-driving shuttle branded "Primary Rapid Transit" operates as a last-mile service on routes within New Clark City, the Clark Freeport Zone, and Clark International Airport, using demand-based dispatching; check locally whether it is still running during your visit. Walking is not a realistic way to get between the main attractions, though the town proper and poblacion area — including barangays such as Cubcub, Cut-Cut II, Santo Domingo I, Santo Domingo II, and Santo Rosario, along with the public market — has the most walkable concentration of activity, including the fast-food chains around Capas Junction in Santo Domingo.
Where to stay
Most of Capas's places to stay sit along MacArthur Highway, which makes them straightforward to reach whether you're arriving by car or continuing on to the surrounding area. In Barangay Santo Domingo, Mr Blue Inn Hotel & Events Venue combines rooms with event facilities, while further along the highway in Cut-Cut, Bossa Nova Inn keeps things simple with standard afternoon check-in and midday check-out.
- Mr Blue Inn Hotel & Events Venue — Barangay Santo Domingo, MacArthur Highway
- Bossa Nova Inn — MacArthur Highway, Cut-Cut
- The Farmhouse at EDL (Estancia de Lorenzo Tarlac) — Sitio Dolores, Mangga; turn left along MacArthur Highway past Tarlac High School and follow the concrete road
If you'd rather stay somewhere quieter and more rural, The Farmhouse at EDL in Sitio Dolores, Mangga, is reached by turning off MacArthur Highway past Tarlac High School and following the concrete road from there. It's the kind of place to base yourself if you want a countryside setting rather than a highway stopover.
Food & drink
For casual street food and drinks, head to the Capas Walking Street along Tizon Drive in Santo Rosario, where stalls sell snacks, beverages and full meals. The town also has its own regional specialty: Barangay Talaga is known as the Tinapa Capital of Tarlac for its Tinapang Talaga, a smoked fish made with tilapia rather than the usual galunggong or bangus, pioneered by the Capaseño family in the 1960s. For sit-down meals, you'll find Filipino restaurants and bakeries around MacArthur Highway and Santo Cristo Street, along with pizza, lechon and international options elsewhere in town. Coffee and tea are easy to find, with cafés scattered across Santo Rosario, Santo Cristo, Cristo Rey, Sto. Domingo and Cubcub, plus a milk tea house on MacArthur Highway in Cutcut II and a café near Palublub Bridge. Several places stay open into the evening, and one café in Aranguren keeps its doors open around the clock.What to see and do
Capas is best known for its World War II memorials, and the largest of them is the Capas National Shrine on Botolan-Capas Road in Aranguren. Built on the site of Camp O'Donnell, it commemorates the soldiers who died there at the hands of the Japanese, and centres on an obelisk with a bell. Elsewhere, the Santo Domingo Death March Marker in Barangay Santo Domingo honours victims of the Death March near the town's abandoned train station, while the Death March Memorial Shrine on MacArthur Highway in Cutcut I, close to the cloverleaf interchange for New Clark City, takes the form of an inverted V and is dedicated both to the tragedy of the march and to the heroism of Allied soldiers; it is sometimes mistaken for the larger national shrine. Capas also has its main Roman Catholic church, San Nicolas de Tolentino Parish on MacArthur Highway in Santo Rosario, founded in the 1770s and rebuilt after the war, with two frontal towers and a feast day that draws crowds.
In New Clark City you can walk the National River Park Corridor, a 1.4-kilometre park along the Cutcut River, and see the New Clark City Athletics Stadium, whose design draws on Mount Pinatubo, and the open-air New Clark City Aquatics Center, shaped after the baklad, a local fish trap. Tambo Lake, formed after the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, is a secluded spot that became a fishing ground for the indigenous Aeta people. For something more active, soak in the two natural hot springs at Bueno Hot Springs in Sitio Danum Mapali, near the Capas-Botolan road, where the water fills concrete pools. You can book a 4x4 vehicle ride to Mount Pinatubo at the Tourism Office in Santa Juliana, or hike Mount Telakawa, a more obscure alternative whose name refers to a pot placed upside down, after its shape. Other options include horseback riding, ATV rides and community immersion at the Jumping Wild Boar Ecopark Ranch in Sitio Banganit, Barangay Maruglu; golf, a Korean-inspired sauna and spa services at New Asia Golf & Spa Resort in O'Donnell; and the Armscor Shooting Center Tarlac in Barangay Dolores.
Three days in Capas
Day one: Start in Capas itself, a quiet town in Tarlac that most travellers pass through on the way to somewhere else. Visit the Capas Station and the memorial at Camp O'Donnell, both tied to the Death March and its Filipino and American prisoners. From there, head toward Clark and the former American air base, now home to the Philippine Air Force and the sprawling Crow Valley gunnery range. If you have time before dark, push on to Tarlac City, where the local Kapampangan cooking is the main draw.
Day two: Give the whole day to Mount Pinatubo. The Aeta communities near the mountain are part of the landscape, and the trek up to the crater is the reason many visitors come to this part of Luzon in the first place. Back down in the lowlands, you can loop through New Clark City, a planned development often compared to Putrajaya and New Songdo City, and see how the old base land is being rebuilt.
Day three: Use Capas as a base for the wider region. Buses run along the Tarlac Subic Tarlac Expressway, known as SCTEX, linking toward Manila, Ilocos, the Luzon Cordilleras, and Angeles. If you are flying out, Clark's CRK airport is close by, which makes Capas a practical last stop before heading home.