Life & Style: BORACAY

A POINT OF VIEW ON SENSIBILITIES

There is this issue on facebook about people calling BORACAY as BORA. The residents of Boracay do not like the idea. See link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boracay-please-not-Bora/116366848428433?sk=wall As an investor in Boracay and a resident, I thought I must say something.

I own a resort lifestyle store in the island called Nautilus PJ Aranador BORACAY for over 7 years, carrying the name BORACAY in my label and packaging. In return, the name BORACAY in my label, ad campaigns and brand character transgresses to the rest of the world as carried by tourists in the products they buy from BORACAY, ergo, this galvanizes as my kind of brand ambassador as well as to BORACAY. It works in TANDEM with my point of view: BORACAY being a UNIQUE NAME as much as my name as a Filipino designer is unique, too. For that matter, ALL NAMES ARE UNIQUE. But there are also CHARMING and IRRITATING names.

For me, it is a point of view of being DIFFERENT. And BORACAY name is ABSOLUTELY THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD . Google search BORA and that UNIQUENESS is lost. That is where the TROUBLE begins---explaining, laughing, questioning, fighting, wondering. Or making oneself being DUPED and MISLED. I do not know about you, but I want mine PRECISE. I do not want my label saying BORA because that does not make sense to me.

QUESTION OF IMAGE BUILDING? Yes it is. Try google search “BORA”. The BORA BORA island in French Polynesia appears. Or you will get BORA as a Greek word meaning "intense summer rain" or Albanian for "snow". Google search BORACAY. Lo and behold, the images of BORACAY emerald seas and sugar white beach appears! THIS IS IT! WOW, you must say. DEFINITELY this is BORACAY! Making a sense and not of something else. Precision.

There are people we call names they do not like because we re-invented his name specially in mockery. Or even sometimes in fondness. Yet that person is un-comfortable with that name. If we are sensible, we express our sorry for having called that person with that name, and correct ourselves. That person becomes happy for us having done so as a sign of respect. That one person may feel better, as well as his friends will better for him, for us giving him his sense of being.

I like BORACAY name as it is more romantic than BORA. I am an avid fan of the name BORACAY because of its poetic rythmical sound. It is like waves splashing on a rock by the pristine seas of the island.

The name BORACAY, as my business policy, should appear in my products and labels. The products we sell are only handmade crafts mostly coming from mainland Panay Island, the MOTHER island of BORACAY, from Aklan, Capiz and Iloilo.

Modesty aside, ours are green and sustainable products which are created by rural communities giving them livelihood and sense of pride with their culture and heritage as well as giving them a sense of pride of who they are as Filipino people. I want to image that as well with some words or names associated with that image. I chose the word BORACAY.

This is our way of giving back to the BORACAY community and beyond its shores---even though my craftsmen do not live in BORACAY but they CO-EXISTS with the opportunities in BORACAY to MAKE THEIR LIVES BETTER. I think this is one of the roadmaps for modern BORACAY---to also help who are less privileged improve their way of life. BORACAY ripples off jobs for all from all over the country--- tricyle drivers, cargo men, sales clerks, cleaners and craft vendors. It is giving BORACAY a sense of SUSTAINABLE LINKAGE to a world outside of its own.

I echo the word BORACAY in my products and design philosophy. Even my resort spa in my hometown, Iloilo City, 300 miles away from BORACAY, echoes the name BORACAY in my billboards and collaterals. I know that the BORACAY image becomes a visual board to those who reads it by way of association. I do not think people will associate BORA as vivid as with the name BORACAY per se. Then one wonders. Not precise.

For over 20 years of toil, through the Department of Trade and Industry and Aklan Provincial Government, I design crafts for its Hugod Aklanon Home Lifestyle Store ( Hugod means” industry” in the local dialect ) in Boracay as a showcase of what the indigenous Aklan people can share with BORACAY guests.

Now, the example of many "Hugods" in the island is being drowned by FOREIGN BRANDS uncontrolably profilerating in BORACAY. Another trouble begins here as I noticed many commercial campaigns by entities who are not home grown Boracay endeavours started to use BORA for the sake of advertising principle that shorter is better or abbreviating is cooler. Not for carelessness but perhaps for being hip. The general public picked this up. But no one can stop that.

To a point hitting the ceiling, the multi-national brands, as they have the money, eats up the BORACAY focal points where the small Filipino producers and services may have been the CHARMING DRAW of BORACAY.

Thus, these small local entrepreneurs are DISPLACED by the "big ones", making parts of the commercial side of BORACAY look like and feel like a city---fast paced life that perhaps the word BORA comes along with it for, typically, life in cities things are quicker to move and shorter words or names are more convenient as time saver.

BORACAY is no longer as charming with all the OUT-OF-PROPORTION presence of GLARING MULTINATIONAL BRANDS over QUAINT LITTLE CHARMING HOME-GROWN SHOPS selling what is only TRULY FILIPINO rather than something one can also pick up in other tourists destinations abroad. To the disgust of foreign tourists, they say: WHY BUY SOMETHING MADE IN CHINA or THAILAND IN BORACAY?

Today, BORACAY is overburdened with GROWTH MANAGEMENT. But BORACAY is not sleeping as outsiders think it is. There are formidable projects on environmental, sustainable and social responsibility issues like those taken by the BORACAY FOUNDATION as well as those by the local government and the private sectors. The efforts are shaping. Perhaps to become the best in the Philippines. Question of time, folks! For those who are outsiders or may not have been in BORACAY, ARROGANCE towards BORACAY is not a point of view.

People ASSUMES. People FIGHT OVER ISSUES. And people CAN BE VERY OPINIONATED. And FORGET SENSIBILITIES. While others act--even silently--- to simply contribute their modest share to make BORACAY INTACT, SELF-RIGHTEOUS people just POINT THEIR FINGERS to somewhere nil and void. There are THINGS THAT WILL FALL INTO THE CRACKS. Sure, it is normal.

But the bottom line is how each of one of us--- residents, tourists, observers, opinion leaders, multipliers, businessmen and government, should CO-EXIST in HARMONY with the CULTURE ( defined as a way of life) of BORACAY as a society with its own point of view.

The BORACAYNONS have BORACAY they call HOME. They want to call their home BORACAY and not something else. It is their home, not ours, not yours but theirs. Let us respect that. If your name is “JUAN”, and you do not want to be called, “PSSST”, you all have the right to protest.

I have worked and lived long enough in BORACAY to see its CHARM being RIPPED OFF. We are in BORACAY to BUILD, NOT TO DESTROY. If you are UNKIND to BORACAY, then you are not the KIND who should be in BORACAY. Much more insulting its sentiments.