THIS weekend, I faced a few inalienable truths.
At a buffet, everybody makes a beeline for the corned beef. If you want some, make sure to head off the pack.
You can truly gauge the capacity of a hotel at breakfast time. Everybody loves free breakfast.
A little bit of dust, a little bit of brokenness, is always beautiful.
“Wala gyud mi,” says tour guide Emmylou P. Noel of the year 2014, the period succeeding the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Bohol. And as if the leveling of towns, structures and lives was not enough devastation for one place to bear, three weeks later, wrathful Yolanda blew any headway of recovery out the door. With hard-hit Leyte unable to supply the province’s electricity, it was “back to basics, “Noel describes—cellphones could only be charged at malls, water gathered at wells—as Bohol experienced a two-month blackout. Many resorts on Panglao had no recourse but to close shop temporarily, the cost alone of operating a generator for prolonged periods becoming much too expensive. Needless to say, tour guides weren’t a busy lot at the time.
***
Today, it is noontime on Mother’s Day. Sitting at Henann Resort’s Coral Café, keeping a watchful eye on both front desk and dessert station, you would hardly know that Bohol’s tourism industry recently went through some dark moments. The line for check-in/out is long. Locals wishing to avail themselves of the lunch buffet promo decide on other arrangements, as there is not an empty seat in the house to be had. Waiters are sweating bullets, moving double time, eager to fulfill numerous guest requests. Seeming signs that may confirm the long-standing promise hanging in the air. Perhaps things are picking up. Perhaps the wind is beginning to blow the other way. Perhaps the tide is slowly turning.
Noel feels it in the air as well. There are around 40 professional tour guides that she knows of, and as of late, they are not enough to meet the season’s demand, not only from foreign, but domestic visitors as well. Locals are surprisingly hiring more and more guides. Part-timers like her are often called to fill in the gaps. Holy Week was especially busy. So is this month of May.
Hotelier Dr. Henry Chusuey probably feels it in the air as well. The newest addition to his family of properties, the Henann Resort Alona Beach opened ever so quietly on May 1. The best day for new beginnings in these parts. The fiesta lasts a full month here, festivities underway, everyday, on some part of the island.
Bigger seems to be the new trend in Panglao, as resorts offering a hundred rooms and up have been making some serious waves. And Chusuey plans to ride the crest, front and center.
“Isn’t it obvious?” the chairman of the Henann Group of Resorts chuckles as he shoots back a question to answer the question, “What is your edge?” Good-natured, charming and funny, his response has no trace of arrogance to it, but instead bears the mark of a man confident in his decision, well accustomed to doing his homework of weighing risk versus benefit. Under the cover of candlelight, you smile too, because it is amusing in its obviousness, akin to pointing a finger at the humongous elephant in the room.
This resort is huge. Sitting on approximately 3.5 hectares of the total 6.5, 120 rooms are currently operational, with 300 soon to be up and running. A convention center that can host 1,000 is slated to open in June. If numbers aren’t your thing, just imagine the area’s average-sized resorts placed three wide by four deep, that is how big we are talking, with room for landscaping to spare. It is the largest property on Panglao island to date.
And you know what they say about a man with a big resort—he has big...plans.
“We consider Henann Resort Alona Beach a milestone in our company’s 17-year history as this is our first property outside Boracay. It has always been my personal goal to expand nationwide and bring the Henann brand of service to the four corners of the Philippines.” Currently under the group’s belt are Boracay Regency Beach Resort and Spa, Henann Garden Resort and Henann Lagoon Resort. They are poised to operate four newly acquired properties soon.
Chusuey is bullish about Panglao because “It is the next Boracay.” Like all his other ventures, here in Bohol he is committed to providing “value for money,” creating jobs for Filipinos and helping the tourism industry.
Hotel driver Jorge Melana lives nearby and has been driving tourists for seven years. He tells of how the years “na kusug gyud kaayo,” while employed by a tour agency dwindled down to working only when needed, which sometimes meant driving two times a week at P300 a day, hardly enough to feed a family. Driving for Henann, not having to worry about when the next paycheck is coming, is a welcome change.
***
Everywhere else around Panglao is the same, but not quite. The Buzz Café’s presence in the form of an ice cream cart two years ago has mushroomed into a full-blown restaurant, on the entire second floor of a commercial complex housing a convenience store, right smack beside a bar, lit by a disco ball.
Ladies of the Panglao Masseuse and Vendors Association continue to peddle their expertise, color-coded scrubs designating respective territories, pink one side, and blue the other. Manicures no longer cost P200. Fancier services are now on the menu, with some rates going as high as a dizzying P800.
***
Other places in Bohol, on the other hand, are different, but same.
The Nuestra Señora de la Asuncion church in Dauis suffered much damage from the quake. Walls cracked, pulpit undone, facade gone. In no condition to accommodate churchgoers, masses are now held in what was once the elegant backyard veranda of Café Lawis. The important things, however, remain: frescoes by masters Rey Francia and Canuto Avila; and the well that is the heart of its healing water.
A bamboo fence now separates the Blood Compact Commemorative Shrine from its unlikely neighbor, a boutique hotel. But still, tourists flock to the Abueva obra, eagerly climbing the concrete dais, taking selfies with Datu Sikatuna and Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. Napoleon Abueva, national artist for sculpture and a native of Duero, Bohol, would be amused.
The Baclayon Church bell tower is in ruins. Stones are piled high by the church front. Inside, pipe scaffoldings cling to walls, like corrective metal leg braces. Yet, it is business as usual at the museum upstairs, relics and artifacts sit silently behind glass cases, some gathering dust, some basking in their renewed moments in the sun. “No Pictures Allowed” prevails as law. Or else.
Hinagdanan Cave is marvelous. Discouraged from visiting on previous trips due to cleanliness issues, I was assured it was more and more like its former self. And what a beauty she is. Shafts of sunlight pour in from holes in the ceiling, the brackish water tinged a soft teal. Bats circle slowly above. Light and shadow play on surfaces. Talk of the supernatural is quickly forgotten.
***
It is déjà vu. I am in front of Trudi’s Place wearing the same dress, toting the same bag, again having my picture taken beside a sand sculpture. Two years ago it was a mermaid, today it is a mother and child, befitting the holiday. This time, I meet the artist behind the work. Twenty-seven-year-old Ramram Ingente has been doing this since 2010. He prefers it here by Trudi’s, because it is the only place on the beachfront with a wall where his pieces can lean. He is not from Boracay as I thought, where sand artists are a dime a dozen, but from Clarin, Bohol. He has an associate degree in hotel and restaurant service technology, the “practical” course, not fine arts. Although he would’ve wanted to be in fine arts. A foreigner whom he had done family portraits for brought him to Panglao so he could “share my talent.” This gift has served him in good stead, earning him as much as P4,000 in tips on a good day, when the traffic on the island was high.
Post Yolanda, he’d be lucky if he could make P400. These days the ceiling is P1,000. “Picking up?” I remark. “Di gyud pareho Ma’am,” he says wistfully, melancholy in his voice thawed by the hope in his smile.
***
I say my thanks and walk away. Heaviness and lightness clutch at my heart. I want to give him a hug and tell him that it will be okay. That the broken pieces of this island are worth seeing, just as much as the whole. That the rose-cast sky at sunset is spectacular. That the fine sand between your toes is heaven. That the cool seawater on your skin is divine. That the resolve to rebuild, to be better than you once were, will always pull you out from under the rubble.
And that if a 420-room resort isn’t a promise of better things to come, you don’t know what is.