The Pinay Boracay Story

The Boracay Women Producers Cooperative (BWPC) is a group of women who saw Boracay as an opportunity to showcase the island’s potential for food production and agriculture-beyond its status as a tourist destination. Better known as Pinay Boracay, they are self-starter entrepreneurs who used the power of the internet to grow their business.

Years after its inception, the cooperative has been able to create its own Heritage Hub a 300 sqm lot where women can process their products, farm organic vegetables and plant tropical flowers.

The women of Pinay Boracay underwent training in preparation for their enterprise development. Their products share the vision of an Eco-Agri-Tourism Far Village. For example, their product lines are made from raw materials that are sourced from the island to adopt a low carbon footprint. They work towards zero-waste and organic processing, as they plan thei own raw materials to ensure safe, non-chemical based farming.

BWPC had a series of advocacies like Organic Boracay to popularize that Boracay is serving safe food through organic farming. Botanicals Boracay to promote the use of herbs as natural medicine, and Beautify Boracay for cleanliness, health, and beautification using herbs, vegetables, tropical flowers, and planting of fruit trees in terms of landscaping designs.

BWPC reinforces conscious efforts to create a circular economy, where the improvement of the quality of products can also improve the quality of the lives of the women and their families.

Vision

A community of productive, proactive, pro health, pro-environment empowered women that will facilitate community transformation for the attainment of gender equality and uphold women’s rights for a sustainable women’s cooperative in Boracay and beyond.

Mission

BWPC is committed to empowering its members to fostering programs, projects, activities to eliminate all violence against women as we engage women to move towards gender equality and economic stability for a transformed community

Core Values

Benevolence – Wealth Minded – Proactive – Commited

Goals

To strengthen the social enterprises catering to natural health solutions resulting in job creation and livelihood opportunities to women and the community.
To employ comprehensive anti-poverty strategies that will manage cultural differences and address inequalities among Boracay residents, migrants and visitors.
To promote an environment in which women and their families will flourish and develop values such as autonomy, democracy, self-help, and mutual aid.
To effectively harness and foster local resources in consonance with the universally accepted Principle of Cooperation.
To achieve gender equality as a human right and entitle women to live with dignity and freedom from fear anywhere they may be

BWPC – From Desolation to Windows of Opportunities

2013 – 2014
From Our Vulnerabilities to Advocacies: Organic Boracay

After a focus group discussion on February 8, 2013, four (4) natives and one (1) migrant started with a MISSION to CONNECT its people to its tourists and guests socio-culturally. Since Boracay has no museum, no library, no historical landmarks, and no cultural product to be known for as a people.

Boracay Island in all its fame and glory is still a community of people. Malay town is a first-class municipality while Boracay Island is the No. 1 Resort Destination in the world, the premier tourist destination of the Philippines. The spiritual values were so low during these times that the women and children were the most disadvantaged since there were no programs for their welfare, no voice in government, and no participation in governance despite the Magna Carta of Women enacted into law in 2009 (RA 9710).

Women, however, saw an opportunity to join the success of the island thru food production, distribution, or the agriculture side. We believe that agriculture should grow as fast as tourism. And the supply of fresh produce in Boracay should be managed by a people’s organization like the women’s sector. But not just any food.

This opportunity for enterprise development inspired the birth of the Boracay Women Producers Cooperative. To participate in the island’s success, BWPC launched to advocate for Health thru Safe Food Production to be an integral part of the tourism promotion of Boracay and reduce the risk for the development of diseases and conditions among women and children in the island. Through our slogan “Uniting the Community for a Green, Organic, Healthy Boracay”, BWPC had a series of advocacies like “Organic Boracay” to popularize that Boracay is serving safe food thru organic farming, “Botanicals Boracay” to promote the use of herbs as natural medicine, food as medicine, eco cosmetics production, and “Beautify Boracay” for cleanliness, health, and beautification using vegetables, herbs, tropical flowers and planting of fruit trees in terms of landscaping design.

2015 – 2016
From Advocacies To Capacities: Eco Agri-Herbal Tourism

Then we launched a vision: “A Place of Women” an Eco Agri Tourism Farm Village where women will be able to farm, manufacture, trade, and showcase the beautiful cultures of Boracay in terms of sustainability and significance.

We underwent training after training to capacitate ourselves in preparation for our enterprise development. Most trainings were conducted by our Municipal Agriculture Office (MAO) and the Agri Herbal Tourism Campaign by Remnant and DA Agricultural Training Institute.

This time, we have opened a 4Ps mini-mart (now Community Mart) under the SLP of DSWD and volunteers for the Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary as force multipliers, help campaign for the mandate of VAWC thru the Magna Carta of Women, actively support organic farming, attend skills and livelihood training for values formation and self- improvement. We were able to pursue our registration with CDA and opened a bank account with the help and support from big sisters.

2017
From Capacities to Identities: Women Empowerment, Sense Of Place, Sense Of Pride

PAGCOR approves our request for start-up capital for our eco cosmetic and food products. The Godofredo B. Ramos Foundation provided additional financial support to build our eco cosmetic processing area and additional capital to our community mart. We were able to lease a 300sqm lot we call our “HERitage Hub”, the mini version of our vision, where we process our products, farm organic vegetables and plant our tropical flowers. This is where we welcome tourists and guests to join us in the actual making of our products.

We have launched products with a cultural and environmental statement to support our vision of an Eco Agri Tourism Farm Village. We have launched our product brands Pinay Boracay and Hibiscus GWAPAMELA. Our product lines are made from raw materials that are sourced on the island to adopt a low carbon footprint, follow Good Manufacturing practices, Towards Zero Waste processing, and plant our raw materials to ensure safe non-chemical-based farming.

We created eco-friendly SOAP SHAMPOO products from Hibiscus Gumamela. Cultural food souvenirs using raw materials from the survival food of Boracaynons: the Root crops and Rema Bread fruit, mass-produced Sara Sara, Boracay’s Native coffee, made available Loveanog, Boracay’s Alcoholic Beverage, produced the healthy Coconut Sugar from the coconut flowers and made several products from the petite mangoes (Indian Mangoes) that are very abundant in the island and Malay but are just left to rot in streets.

Our eco soap shampoo ingredients are the Natural Lye from hardwood driftwood ash with Gumamela extract and rainwater, dried sweet potatoes as a non-dairy coffee creamer, tropical flowers into candies, teas, mangoes & pineapples to dried fruits and fruit jams, mango winemaking are some products we have created just using social media, especially YouTube.

2018 – 2019
From Identities To Enterprise Building: Desperate Times turned to Opportunities

But just as we were about to rise, then came the six months closure of the island. No cruise ship arrivals. No sales, canceled POs, accumulating inventories, 25+5 violation of our processing site, most of our members lost their sources of income. There is a large number of members that are mothers, specifically single mothers with the need to put food on the table and send their kids to proper schooling.

This was when we started to seek friends and networks who are into online marketing to help us sell our products online. We joined DTI’s trade shows and One Aklan Online Store. DOST grants our machines under SET UP, DA validates/assess our group and provides SURE loans to our women farmers, Communal Gardens and KADIWA project, TESDA and DTI offered our members National Certification (NC) skills and livelihood training, DOLE DILEEP provides a 1 million peso grant for the enhancement of our products and community mart. We won the DOLE Best Kabuhayan Project for Region 6 in 2020.

Eventually, BWPC became a refuge to VAW (Violence Against Women) victims too since BWPC can provide informal labor and consumer needs to our members when we introduced the Coop Duty for Share Capital, Coop Duty for Rice, Coop Duty for Salary, and Character Loan.

Bayanihan ng Kababaihan was launched to provide support system to abused victims. They are given special assistance in terms of available job vacancies and aid from the coop, donors and government. A VAW Advocacy Team was created to attend to this growing concern in our community.

During the closure, government agencies came to give their support to our cooperative. However, DENR and DAR are yet to work on the critical assistance we need as a people’s organization: LAND for our Eco Agri Tourism Farm Village in Boracay.

2020 and beyond
Significance and Sustainability: Success within Reach

BWPC significant projects for its members and continuous transformations for growth and maturity of the enterprise depends a lot on research, sales, and members’ commitment.

Even during this pandemic period, our membership has increased to 1,212 and nine (9) enterprises due to the funding programs and training support of our government agencies and some NGOs. Thru the practice of circular economy for inclusive growth, we are still able to give formal jobs to eleven (11) ladies and informal employment to about 120 mothers esp single mothers, and senior citizens. We always try to achieve a professionally run operations of our enterprises thru online training on business management. We target to pay for social benefits like SSS, pagIBIG, PhilHealth, Insurances of the members with the 2nd phase with DOLE DILEEP Bakery and Coffee Shop Project. In addition to DA KADIWA and Communal Garden Projects and DTI Shared Service Facility in Sewing Project.

Since our legalization as a cooperative in 2015 and with a slogan “Uniting the Community for a Green Organic Healthy Boracay” (since its inception in 2013), BWPC was the presenter on Boracay Rehabilitation during Duterte Legacy launch organized by the Presidential Communications Operations Office, a multi-awarded women’s group by the Provincial Government of Aklan and DOLE Kabuhayan Awards in 2019 and 2020 respectively, a recipient of DA KADIWA sa Kita at Ani, Urban Garden and Communal Garden Projects, DTI Shared Service Facility in Wearables/Sewing, DOLE Integrated Livelihood Enterprise Program for its HERitage cultural and eco products, Community Marts, Bakery and Coffee Shop, PAGCOR’s Corporate Social Responsibility, DSWD’s Livelihood Assistance Grant, DOST SET UP, Recipient of the Philippine Commission on Women GREAT Women Project 2 Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE), Canadian Executive Service Organization (CESO) Accelerating Women’s Empowerment Program, Foundation for the Philippine Environment’s Boracay Island Beach Forest Restoration Project and volunteers of the Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary Squadron 609.1 Boracay. We were awarded Best Division in 2018 by PCG Western Visayas.

BWPC sits as the Vice-Chair for Labor in the DOLE BITC Boracay Industry Tripartite Council, an accredited Regular Civil Society Organization of the Municipality of Malay (Secretary to the People’s Council and Member of the Municipal Development Council) and the Province of Aklan, Chairperson of Malay Municipal Agri Fishery Council (MAFC), Committee Head on Cooperatives of Provincial Agri Fishery Council, formerly a member of the Malay Local Health Board, a member of the NAPC Women Sectoral Council, former Visayas Regional Advisory Council Member of the Foundation for the Philippine Environment, an active participant of the One Boracay Movement, beneficiary of Boracay Foundation Inc., DTI Small and Medium Enterprise Development Council – Aklan, participant to NATCOOP Women’s Training Programs, trainees of DRRMO of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD), an accredited Mentor of the Bayan Academy, a scholar of DTI and PTTC’s Master Class 3R Boot Camp, a member of the Aklan Cooperative Alliance, PCCI Boracay and recently, a women group sector representative of the PNP Global Coalition of Lingkod Bayan Advocacy Support Groups and Force Multipliers and Treasurer to the Municipal Fishery and Aquatic Resources Council (MFARMC).

In May 8, 2022 (Mother’s Day), BWPC created the Boracay Women Homeowners Association (BOWHOA) after undergoing orientation from Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC), a government agency funding social housing projects. The site of BOWHOA’s “vertical” low rise social housing project in Brgy. Dumlog, Malay is processing its accreditation from DHSUD. The sectoral housing project will also include the Fruits and Vegetable Processing Facility cum office, cum training center, cum showroom and hostel from the Department of Agriculture. The processing facility of HERitage Products will create and provide jobs to about 300 women resident members as worker members. Also, BWPC has acquired a 7,000sqm agricultural lot located in Sitio Panitan, Brgy. Balusbos, Malay as Agri Village for livestock, poultry, fresh water shrimp & tilapia polyculture farm. Thirty (30) BWPC senior citizens and demolished members from Boracay are the farm workers of the said property.

BWPC also dedicated its 2021 and 2022 Community Development Funds (CDF) to 180 DOLE SPES beneficiaries as an opportunity of our future generation to work with their mothers at BWPC enterprises. They create a special bond while also earning for their schooling.

With all the major projects for the welfare, wellness and well-being of the women of Boracay and its next generation, BWPC maintains to stay significant to its members in the most desperate of times.