The Municipality of Pateros is a First-Class Municipality and the lone Municipality in Metro Manila. Pateros is famous for its duck-raising industry and especially for producing balut, a Filipino delicacy, which is a boiled, fertilized duck egg. Pateros is also known for the production of red salty eggs and “inutak”, a local rice cake. Moreover, the town is also known for manufacturing of “”alfombra””, a locally made footwear with a carpet-like fabric on its top surface. It is one of the indigenous skills in Pateros. The name Pateros came from the Tagalog words “Pato” which refers to the mallard duck which lays the eggs for balut, and “Sapatero” which means shoemaker. Pateros, officially the Municipality of Pateros (Tagalog: [ˈpɐtɛɾɔs]; Filipino: Bayan ng Pateros), is the lone municipality of Metro Manila, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 63,643 people. This municipality is famous for its duck-raising industry and especially for producing balut, a Filipino delicacy, which is a boiled, fertilized duck egg. Pateros is also known for the production of red salty eggs and “inutak“, a local rice cake. Moreover, the town is known for manufacturing of “alfombra“, a locally-made footwear with a carpet-like fabric on its top surface. Pateros is bordered by the highly urbanized cities of Pasig to the north, and Taguig to the west and south. Pateros is the smallest municipality both in population and in land area, in Metro Manila, but it is the second most densely populated at around 37,000 inhabitants per square kilometer or 96,000 inhabitants per square mile after the capital city of Manila.
Balut is one of the indigenous and original innovations of the people of Pateros. Among other indigenous skills of the people of Pateros are shoemaking and manufacturing of the “alfombra slippers.” Balut is a fertilized developing egg embryo that is boiled or steamed and eaten from the shell. It is commonly sold as street food most notably in the Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam. The term comes from the Filipino language.
