When I was a teenager (long time ago), holy week meant that my sisters and brother would be stuck in the house for a week and together bear the intense heat of summer. Our mother would be blurting out commands for errands or any other household chore help. It was also a time not to try to do menial things on a Good Friday or even on a Black Saturday. I could go on and on listing down all the donts on these two days. But nowadays, when Holy Week is just around the corner, people start planning and budgeting. For what? For a big beach exodus. Here in the Visayas, the big word and the place to see and be seen (in the words of my friend Tukayo) is Boracay.
I have spent a number of Holy Weeks in Boracay in my 20 years or so here in Panay. Just mention the name of the place during Holy Week and it would elicit envy, excitement, among other things among the young ones. At the gym, it is commonplace to hear one saying to another at the locker room while looking at his half-naked self in the mirror - is this body ready for Boracay? The first time I heard it, I thought that people are joining Bikini Contests during this time but would be surprised when I looked at them and thought their bodies were far from being prepared for such display of narcissism.
When I announced in FB that I drove from Iloilo to Caticlan and back, two of my friends could not help but comment. In summary, they hoped that the effort and most especially the splurging was worth it. Finally, they were unable to control their distaste for Boracay as a place of wild, rowdy crowd and a place to see and be seen. While I agree partly with them, they were not altogether describing the reality there. For one, there are three stations there -Station 1 and 2 are mostly party areas but Station is the cheapest and the quietest area there. So there you are, there are choices. If you are a party animal, go to these two stations but if you want serenity, you can have it. In other beach resorts, you do not have any choices but the deafening silence. Another is that at night, the eat-all-you-can dinners are competing with each other and the result is that they try pulling down their prices to outdo each other to the benefit of the beach goers. I have been to a smaller but similar island in Negros Occidental, food is so pricey since there is no other entity to compete with. At any rate, the sunset and other sceneries and the people are the attraction of Boracay not to mention the number of movie stars that go there year in and year out. I enjoyed it so much during the Holy Week that I am going back this week.
When I was a teenager (long time ago), holy week meant that my sisters and brother would be stuck in the house for a week and together bear the intense heat of summer. Our mother would be blurting out commands for errands or any other household chore help. It was also a time not to try to do menial things on a Good Friday or even on a Black Saturday. I could go on and on listing down all the donts on these two days. But nowadays, when Holy Week is just around the corner, people start planning and budgeting. For what? For a big beach exodus. Here in the Visayas, the big word and the place to see and be seen (in the words of my friend Tukayo) is Boracay. 
When I announced in FB that I drove from Iloilo to Caticlan and back, two of my friends could not help but comment. In summary, they hoped that the effort and most especially the splurging was worth it. Finally, they were unable to control their distaste for Boracay as a place of wild, rowdy crowd and a place to see and be seen. While I agree partly with them, they were not altogether describing the reality there. For one, there are three stations there -Station 1 and 2 are mostly party areas but Station is the cheapest and the quietest area there. So there you are, there are choices. If you are a party animal, go to these two stations but if you want serenity, you can have it. In other beach resorts, you do not have any choices but the deafening silence. Another is that at night, the eat-all-you-can dinners are competing with each other and the result is that they try pulling down their prices to outdo each other to the benefit of the beach goers. I have been to a smaller but similar island in Negros Occidental, food is so pricey since there is no other entity to compete with. At any rate, the sunset and other sceneries and the people are the attraction of Boracay not to mention the number of movie stars that go there year in and year out. I enjoyed it so much during the Holy Week that I am going back this week.
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