Boracay: A Plea For The Island Of My Roots

Boracay Island

The place had been advertised enough and does not really need a lot of introduction if you ask me. But anyway, it’s been described as having the second best beach in the world (White Beach that is), a backpacker’s haven and a heaven for water sports aficionados. It also boasts of having a really great night life, and for those who prefer the quiet there are establishments up in the hills of the island and some isolated resorts where you can experience what the island was before the ‘advertisement boom’.

But anyway, I do not want to repeat what is already in a lot of websites, brochures, invitations and all kinds of media. Also, I myself had been in the island already during these years: 1989, 1990, 1991, 1997, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and of course 2014 (June 3-7).

So… seeing from how frequent I had been there you may now think what some acquaintances of mine had misconstrued over the years… Ang yaman mo naman pare!! This is because of the island’s reputation for having expensive travel fares (to and fro) and of course, accommodation. So it is safe to assume that our family has ‘what it takes’ to travel so frequently to the island. But it’s not the case. We never had to pay for accommodations… only the travel fares which sometimes we avail through ‘promos’ anyway. Because you see… whenever we go there it is not to just experience this really great island… it’s to go home to our province from time to time…

Yes, you read it right. Province. My mother’s family, the Sacapanos, had lived in the island for generations. It all started when my great-great-great-grandfather Angel Sacapano and his wife Vicentica Coching (and maybe some relatives and their already born children) migrated from Ibajay, Aklan in the island of Panay in the 1850s or 60s. Maybe they were searching for new lands to farm, but we can’t be so sure but the sure thing is that they were awed as their boats approached the then lush palm tree forests and of course, the pure white (then) sands… (Also, since they came from Aklan, it maybe not White Beach that they first saw but Bulabog Beach, in the other side). Then, landing on the island they surely saw such an opportunity in the island and of course, transfixed by the beauty when they already saw the White Beach. Then, the island was sparsely inhabited by the native Atis (related to the Aetas) and some other families already living there. And thus, they settled.

        Generations followed and more people from Aklan came, forming some sort of alliance within the families, effective enough that inter-marriages followed, blooming into the Boracay natives (aside from the Atis – which we still are probably related) we know today. And for more than a hundred years they lived almost in isolation except for the relatives they have in Aklan. Although, after World War II, my grandfather, Ernesto Sacapano, Sr. went to work as crew of a fishing boat and came to Isla Verde (island again hehehe) in Batangas as a result and met my grandmother. Anyway, those in Boracay had the island for themselves for a long time and started legally (with paperwork) owning parcels of land in the ‘lowlands’ near the beaches and in the ‘highlands’ well… up the hills. They had also began to be established enough to be the leaders of the island.

However, in the early 70s, some Europeans (probably Germans as my elder relatives said), saw the island… and loved it too much that they advertised it on the way home and for the next two decades, many foreigners (mainly Western during this time) starting coming in droves… and even settling there (I have three Swiss aunts that I know – wives of three of my mother’s cousins). Still, it was not enough to destroy the tranquillity of the island. When I first came there in 1989 (I was six), I can still remember it as an island paradise with a lot of open spaces along with lots of trees along White Beach. There was also no electricity back then and everything was as rustic as you can imagine. Resorts were made of cottages of native materials and there was only one disco at that time. The name was Basura as I can remember. But anyway, even though my first visit in Boracay was fun as a kid, I had the misfortune of breaking my right arm in an accident. And so I had the experience of being treated in the native way by a grandfather which thankfully was effective… as there were no doctors in the island at that time!

More visits followed and as time passed, I saw how the island transformed. It may have increased in fame and prestige… but the peace and tranquillity it once had is already slowly disappearing. Seeing it from the plane in my most recent visit, I saw large tracts of brown soil amongst the green, meaning that many trees had been felled again. And in the hills, a prestige hotel was built on a chunk of land that was quarried. The white sands that made the island so famous is slowly turning… well, dirty white. Let there not be a time when the natural balance of the island be completely ignored for the sake of progress.

Thankfully, there are still places in Boracay that reminds us what the island used to be. For the first time in my many visits there I came to the southernmost part of the White Beach. It was so quiet, and it was already almost midday by then. I also had been to the highest point of the island (Luho) and the view of the whole island and the surrounding sea is spectacular… except for the tracts of land being quarried that is… That is why whenever I come to the island, it’s not to be part of the thrill of going through what many young (and not so young) people normally go to the island for. I often walk alone to the isolated spots thankfully still untouched.

“Progress is good, son… but I fear of what would happen to this island… the natural balance here in the island is slowly diminishing… and I predict that in the coming decades… the island would become too cluttered”, says a minor character from a novel I wrote. A character based on a grandfather (still) living in Boracay. That scene in the story was set in 1996… but yes, what he said had happened.

So… let’s preserve what could still be preserved there… before it’s too late…