The Boracay Establishment
Before Boracay transformed into a world-famous tourist destination in the Philippines, it was a secluded island with no cars, shoes, or electricity; a well-kept secret of the natives, landowners, and a small community of colorful characters: expats from Europe and the States, artists, hippies, and beach bums escaping the grind and looking for paradise. These people gave Boracay its first personality, which would evolve over many years and thousands of new residents—but these are the guys who were here before anybody, who took a chance and invested their lives and money into defining the island’s culture and making it one of the most magical places on earth. They say Boracay is in danger of over-development, but as long as the people in these pages still live there, the island will never lose its heart and soul
Bong & Amanda Tirol
Proprietors, White House Resort, Established in 1973
Photographed by Wawi Navarroza on the beach in front of White House with their kids Sasha and Lucas on October 13, 2007
In the early 1900s, two brothers by the name of Ciriaco and Lamberto Ureta were jailed in Aklan for throwing a Spanish official in the river. The brothers soon escaped and fled to Europe, to a ski-resort town high up in the Austrian Alps called Tirol. Here they laid low for a few years and enjoyed the good life, until it was safe to come back home using a new name they adopted from the “resort town” they grew to love. Little did they know that Paradise was under their noses all along, on a seven-kilometer-long, dog-bone-shaped island off the northwest corner of Panay called Boracay. Hence the history goes of the island’s longest ruling family, whose entire network of relatives own, operate, and lease more than two-thirds of the island and its neighbor Carabao. The Tirols are represented here by one of their more engaging and enterprising young scions, Bong, who is a key player in the biggest development project on the island, the Shangri-La, and his equally successful wife, Amanda, who made a name for herself planning fantasy island weddings after her own was such a hit. Together they are a class-act couple: good-hearted, down-to-earth, and always around laughter—the way a Boracay family should be.
