Bantayan

Bantayan is famous as the Philippine island that eats meat during Holy Week, traced to a papal indult Pope Leo XII granted in 1824 because isolated fisherfolk had paused fishing to build their church. Note the catch: that indult expired around 1843, so the meat-eating survives as deep local custom, not a standing Church exemption, and the parish itself now pushes back on calling it official. Ask a local family and you'll hear it framed as tradition, not a free pass.

Founded by Augustinians in 1580, this is reckoned the oldest parish in the Visayas and Mindanao — once the first stop where new priests learned the language before fanning out across the islands. The current church, built of island coral stone between 1839 and 1863, sits beside the remnants of a Spanish fort that once guarded the town from pirate raids. Go inside for the antique Passion images, then walk to the old fort walls.

Bantayan's Maundy Thursday and Good Friday processions are among the grandest in the Visayas: rows of life-sized Passion images on carrozas, some dating to an 1887 inventory and originally shipped from Spain, are wheeled out by families who pass them down like heirlooms. Crowds of 40,000-plus pack the streets. Come for Holy Week itself and watch from the church plaza where the floats assemble.

The island's eastern and southern coasts run for kilometers of fine, powdery white sand and turquoise shallows. Paradise Beach in the south is the secluded, near-pristine one — a 20-minute tricycle from Santa Fe then a short trek — while Kota Beach has a sandbar that appears and vanishes with the tide. Go to Paradise on a weekday and you may have it nearly to yourself; bring your own water and shade.

Bantayan's poultry farms are so prolific the island is nicknamed the egg basket of the Visayas, reportedly shipping around half a million eggs a day to mainland Cebu, Panay, Negros and Leyte. It's an unglamorous engine that quietly stocks fridges across the region — you'll spot the layer farms inland, away from the resort strip, proof the island runs on far more than tourism.

Bantayan is one of the country's biggest producers of buwad (sun-dried fish), above all danggit — rabbitfish split, salted and dried hard in the sun. The public market sells dozens of variants, plus dayok, the pungent bottled pickle of danggit innards that locals swear by. Buy a few vacuum-light packs to fly home, and try the labtingaw (semi-dried) kind pan-fried for breakfast.