Bus stations
The Philippines built its first airport-style bus terminal in 2018: PITX in Parañaque now moves 200,000 people a day — while Cubao keeps the old-school north.
The Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange on Coastal Road is the Philippines’ first intermodal landport: air-conditioned halls, numbered gates, ticket booths, food courts, a direct link to the LRT-1 extension and the UBE Express airport loop — twenty minutes from NAIA. Gates split by geography: Cavite and Tagaytay upstairs, Batangas-Laguna-Quezon and the NAIA loop at Gate 5, long-haul Bicol, Visayas and Mindanao RoRo buses at Gate 2.
The RoRo network is PITX’s marvel: buses board ferries and keep going — Calapan on Mindoro from ₱515 in five hours, Masbate in 20, and Philtranco’s Luzviminda runs to Davao in 36–40 hours, Luzon to Mindanao without leaving your seat.
The north still answers to Cubao: Quezon City’s cluster of company terminals (Victory Liner, Five Star, JAM, Genesis) sends hourly buses to Baguio, Pangasinan, Zambales and the Cagayan Valley — the Baguio run in particular is a 4–6-hour institution with departures around the clock. Buendia/Gil Puyat covers the Batangas short-haul. The rule: south goes PITX, north goes Cubao, and the EDSA Carousel busway links them in about an hour.
THE TIO READ
PITX is the rare Manila infrastructure that works exactly as advertised: arrive 45 minutes early, buy at the booth for your province, watch the gate screens. For Baguio, go Cubao and book Victory Liner’s deluxe — the extra legroom earns its pesos on the mountain climb. And if time is elastic, take one RoRo run in your life; a bus rolling onto a ferry is the Philippines in one image.
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