We’re on the last quarter of the year and things have been happening pretty fast. Seair Inflight’s October-November 2009 edition revisits the wonders of Baguio, explored the paranormal places in the Philippines and gives account to first time Open Water diver in Boracay. Again, I was lucky enough to be able to grace and contribute to the pages of the magazine for the Baguio features. Check them out when you fly Seair anytime soon. Check out the editorial note below.
Issue Contents:
As a child I sometimes spent holidays with my mother in my aunt’s farmhouse in Antique, on the west coast of Panay Island, just a few hours away from Iloilo and Caticlan.
I remember the house had a huge kitchen, a stone oven, and an equally huge wooden table where my 12 cousins and I had our meals away from the adults, who dined in a separate grown-up room.
I remember the breakfast table was often filled with freshly baked pandesal, perfect little loaves of bread piled high on top of each other, more than enough, I thought, to feed the whole town. But then my aunt did feed the whole town because she was the local baker. We used this to great advantage. Mornings heralded great pandesal fights in the kitchen, warm buns flying everywhere. A great waste, but great fun.
My cousins seemed to lead the kind of idyllic country lifestyle we city folks envied. Days were spent on the beach, or harvesting nuts or mangoes, or snoozing in the shade of some convenient tree.
Night time was another matter. Some may see it as superstitious mumbo-jumbo, but in common with many other Filipinos my cousins believed in – and often talked about – the dreaded aswangs and how they roamed the streets at night. An aswang is a creature of Filpino folklore, part witch and part vampire, and in the dark streets of provincial towns it’s easy to believe they might just be out there. Antique is known as the home of witches and vampires.
This was long ago and might sound a little bit silly now. But in the unspoiled, rural communities of our childhood, vampires and tales of the unexpected by candlelight were enough to scare most of us half to death.
In this issue of InFlight, celebrating Halloween, we retell some of the country’s tales of the unexpected and the supernatural (See pages 60 to 75), touching on ghosts, sorcerers and peculiarly Filipino demons and banshees such as aswangs, kapres and dwendes. These stories still form part of the fabric of Filipino lives and my home town, Antique, makes it on to our list of the country’s most eerie places.
Our cover story pages 44 to 57 brings us down to earth with a dive. Contributing writer Catherine Calderon accepted the challenge of learning to dive in Boracay with PADI dive outfit Sea World.
Her story of the ups and downs of learning makes for interesting reading. Diving opens up a whole new world and if you haven’t already taken the plunge, you’ll want to after reading this.
— Editor, SEAIR InFlight Magazine
Credits:
Cover concept by: SEAIR InFlight
Photo by: Ken Go
Art direction by: Jocas A. See
Fashion styling by: Monica De Leon
Makeup by: Rocky Orejola
Modeling by: Theresa Fenger
Location: Shangri – La’s Boracay and Resort Spa’s private beach
Coverstory inside photos by: Roberto S. Francisco
Contributing photographers: Mike Alcid, Oggie Ramos, Shawn Yao, Ferdz Decena, Daniel Soriano, and the list goes on…
For subscription and copy reservation, call: +632 840.2802
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