BORACAY ISLAND SALUTES HON. NENETTE AGUIRRE-GRAF
Visionary, public servant, sports icon and environmental warrior who spent much of her life fighting for the island she loved
By Freida Dario-Santiago
The Boracay Sun News family offers our heartfelt sympathies and prayers to the family and loved ones of Nenette Aguirre-Graf, who joined her Maker on August 7, 2026. She was 67 years old and gone too soon.
Boracay has lost one of its fiercest advocates and most colorful characters.
We join the Boracay Island and Malay communities in mourning the loss of one of our own: a true Malaynon and Boracaynon who was a highly respected and well-loved pillar of the community, a fearless leader and public servant, a staunch defender and island warrior, and a loving mother.
Nenette Aguirre-Graf was many things to many people: champion windsurfer, environmental and cultural advocate and community leader. To many of us, the warrior was also a friend.
She was, in many ways, a bridge between two Boracays: the quiet island she came to know in its early years and the world-famous destination she would spend much of her life helping shape, defend and protect.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF NENETTE AGUIRRE-GRAF
By Freida Dario-Santiago
With excerpts from Leonae Graf’s eulogy at her mother’s necrological service.
Maylynn “Nenette” Aguirre-Graf
31 May 1959 – 7 August 2026
From Motag to Boracay
Maylynn “Nenette” Aguirre Graf was born on May 31, 1959, in Pudiot, Tangalan, Aklan, to Flora Tajaran Aguirre and Rufino “Pino” Sullano Aguirre. She was raised in Motag, Malay, where she attended Malay Elementary School.
Competitive even as a child, Nenette was said to hate being beaten at games, an early glimpse of the determination that would define much of her life.
She later moved to Manila for higher education, initially intending to study medicine. An unexpected win in an art competition changed that path, and she went on to study Fine Arts at the Philippine Women’s University School of Fine Arts and Design. Though she did not pursue art professionally, that creative streak would find its way into many of the things she later built and created.
After school, she came to Boracay for what her daughter Leonae described as a “sabbatical” in 1984. She never left.
Nenette first worked with her family at Aguirre’s Rest House. With no restaurant at the resort, she began preparing breakfast and dinner for guests. A Swiss chef staying on the island helped her learn European cooking, and Greenyard Schnitzel House was born. Over the next 18 years, she would own and operate several restaurants, among them Boracay’s first Mongolian barbecue, Cafe Sun Thai, Wahine and Mrs. Moon, often in collaboration with friends.
Then Came the Wind
Long before she became known principally for her civic and environmental advocacy, Nenette was a force on the water.
Her future husband, Roby, was one of the visiting windsurfing instructors from the school where she learned the sport. They married in 1986 and later ran their businesses and windsurf school together. She would eventually become one of the most accomplished women in Asian windsurfing.
A celebrated and multi-awarded champion, she became widely known as “Asia’s fastest woman windsurfer” and as the Philippines’ undefeated lady windsurfer.
In 1988, Nenette and Roby marked their wedding anniversary by organizing a friendly windsurfing competition among local and visiting friends. That modest gathering grew into the Boracay International Funboard Cup, one of the island’s earliest and longest-running sporting events. It ran for 26 years and helped put Bulabog Beach, Boracay and the Philippines on the international windsurfing map.
Nenette at the Boracay International Funboard Cup 1993, one of the island’s earliest and longest-running sporting events, which she founded with her husband Rob. 📸 Eva-Marie Eriksson
The water was not merely her playground. It became part of her life’s work.
In 2002, she learned to kiteboard and introduced the sport to Boracay. Greenyard Hangin became the island’s first kitesurfing school, paving the way for other schools and helping draw a new generation of wind-sports visitors to Bulabog. In 2012, through her long friendship and partnership with windsurf brand Neil Pryde, Boracay hosted the RS: One Windsurf event, bringing some of the sport’s leading names to the island.
She also co-organized the Boracay International Dragon Boat Festival for 12 years with close friends, adding another international sporting tradition to Boracay’s calendar.
Nenette joined Team Bugsay in 2006 (later renamed Boracay Bumshells) when they competed in Hong Kong
📸 Azenith Resurreccion
Nenette took particular pride in having helped accomplish something not only for Boracay, but for the Philippines, bringing international windsurfing events and athletes to the island and helping establish Bulabog as one of Asia’s important wind-sports destinations and strengthening Boracay’s identity as far more than a place to sunbathe on a beautiful beach.
A Voice for Boracay
As Boracay grew, so did Nenette's determination to protect it.
Public service ran in the Aguirre family. Her brother Rowen “Nonoy” Aguirre served on the Malay Sangguniang Bayan and remained active in local politics. Nenette herself served three terms as Barangay Captain of Motag and two consecutive terms as a member of the Sangguniang Bayan of Malay.
In 1996, she became one of the founding members of Boracay Foundation Inc. (BFI), one of the island's pioneering stakeholder organizations. She would go on to serve two terms as its elected president and remained a longtime trustee. For more than 25 years, she hosted the foundation’s community affairs program, from its early incarnation, “Itanong Mo sa Buko,” to what became “Kapihan sa Boracay.”
Through the years, she became one of the community’s most persistent voices on environmental protection, tourism management, infrastructure and the need to balance development with the island’s carrying capacity.
She fought for the environment. As an SB member, she authored Municipal Ordinance No. 386, Series of 2018, the municipality’s comprehensive single-use plastics measure, and later Municipal Ordinance No. 431, Series of 2020, which increased Boracay’s environmental fee to help fund environmental operations. She also drafted legislation identifying and adopting coordinates for marine protected areas in Boracay and Malay.
She fought for the community. She fought for a Boracay where development would not come at the cost of the island’s soul. Her advocacy was not always comfortable, and she was never afraid to challenge those in power when she believed Boracay needed defending.
She spoke publicly on land classification and titling issues, environmental violations, shoreline protection and tourism regulation. Her work reflected a conviction that protecting Boracay required not only love for the island, but also the courage to speak up when something threatened its future.
Through the BFI, she was part of the successful opposition to the Caticlan-Boracay reclamation project. During the unprecedented six-month closure and rehabilitation of Boracay in 2018, she helped defend the rights of the community while also recognizing the environmental problems that had to be addressed, and advocated for the protection of the Bulabog landscape from becoming a highway.
Over the years, she also opposed the proposed Petrowind wind project, the San Miguel Corp. (SMC) hydroelectric project near the Nabaoy River and, more recently, the proposed SMC Caticlan-Boracay Bridge.
The protection of the Nabaoy watershed and the natural resources of Boracay and Malay remained among the causes she refused to abandon. Just this July, in one of her final battles for the island, Nenette gathered the community over electric poles being installed along Bulabog’s Brick Road.
And there were countless battles in between.
In March this year, the Department of Tourism Region VI recognized that lifetime of advocacy when it named her an awardee of the Icons of Sustainable Tourism Awards and Recognition, or ISTAR, citing her work for inclusive and sustainable tourism, particularly in Bulabog.
She Fought the Good Fight to the End
Even in the final days of her life, the work continued. One of her last posts concerned coral protection, following a July 30 meeting between the BFI and Japanese scientists on coral-reef conservation. On August 5, just two days before she passed, she sent me a photograph to emphasize how deeply she cared about this. Nenette was still watching, still asking questions, still looking out for Boracay.
For Nenette, development was never simply about building more. It was about asking what kind of island Boracay wanted to become and what it might lose along the way.
She taught us an invaluable lesson: the courage to keep asking the questions, the willingness to speak up, and the conviction that Boracay was worth protecting.
Preserving More Than a Place
Her concern for the island was inseparable from her concern for its people, culture and history.
Nenette was the visionary and driving force behind the Motag Living Museum, which opened on her birthday, May 31, 2014. Described as the first living museum in the Philippines, it brought together cultural preservation and tourism by showcasing Malaynon and Boracaynon traditions and the living heritage of local communities. Nenette called it “the past coming to life.”
The museum was conceived not simply as a tourist attraction but as a way of creating livelihoods and giving visitors a glimpse of the communities and traditions that existed beyond Boracay’s beaches.
That instinct for preserving memory also found another outlet in the Facebook group Boracay Retrospective, which Nenette created to collect photographs of the island from the 1970s through the 2000s. Old photographs reconnected people, revived shared memories and eventually became a resource for magazines, television and other media.
And let’s not forget: “IT’S BORACAY PLEASE, NOT BORA!”
In 2008, Nenette created the Facebook group “BORACAY” PLEASE, NOT BORA, turning a deceptively simple message into a long-running campaign for Boracaynon identity and pride. Over the years, she continued to push the message beyond social media and into local policy.
It was a seemingly simple message, but quintessentially Nenette: fiercely proud of Boracay, protective of its identity and never afraid to speak up.
Perhaps what made Nenette’s advocacy so deeply personal was that she remembered the island before it became what the world knows today. She knew the Boracay of fewer people, simpler lives, coconut trees lining the shore and a community in which people knew one another.
She understood that the island could not remain frozen in time. But she also understood that progress without care could erase the very qualities that made Boracay worth coming to in the first place.
A Force of Nature
Beyond the titles, accomplishments and causes, Nenette was a fierce and fun friend with an unforgettable laugh and sense of humor.
She was a confidante, big sister, role model and mentor to many, someone who brought people together. Beneath that force of personality was an abiding love for her island, its people, its natural environment and the sense of community that defined the old Boracay.
In a tribute to her mother, Leonae perhaps described her best: “My mother was larger than life. A force of nature through and through.” She remembered a woman who moved with purpose and creativity, who did what she believed was right even when it was unpopular, and called her “one of the most alive, energetic, compassionate, and fierce people I know.”
Nenette did not simply fight for Boracay herself. She inspired other people to fight for it, too.
That may ultimately be one of the greatest gifts she left behind.
A Final Salute
On August 18, Boracay gave her a farewell that could only have been hers. Family, teammates, fellow sustainability advocates, public officials and longtime friends gathered along Bulabog Beach. Windsurf boards and kites lined the pathway in a final salute as members of the PNP carried Nenette to a native bangka, then escorted the boat as it carried her across the waters to Mainland Malay.
HONOR GUARD. Uniformed personnel stood watch over Nenette Aguirre-Graf during her wake, with honor guards from various military units, including the 47th and 61st Infantry Battalions, taking turns in 30-minute watches and rotating shifts with members of the PNP. In recognition of her years of public service, Nenette was also accorded Philippine flag honors during her funeral and necrological service. The flag was later solemnly folded and presented to her family, and she received a final salute with the playing of “Taps” at her burial. 📸 Azenith Resurreccion and Freida Dario-Santiago
The wind she loved carried her home.
On August 26, the Boracay and Malay communities came together again for a final farewell. At the necrological service in Poblacion, Malay, the breadth of her life became unmistakable as she was remembered as family, friend, leader and public servant. Persistence was a running theme in the eulogies. So was the extraordinary reach of her influence.
On August 26, the Boracay and Malay communities came together for a final farewell at the necrological service in Poblacion, Malay. 📸 Freida Dario-Santiago
A Resolution of Condolence was presented by Vice Mayor Niño Carlos Cawaling, and the service concluded with the presentation of the folded Philippine flag to the family.
She leaves behind a legacy woven deeply into the story of Boracay itself: its transformation from a little-known tropical refuge into a world-famous destination, the growing pains that came with that transformation, and the continuing struggle to protect what made the island special in the first place.
No words can fully express the sorrow of losing such an integral part of the community.
In the days following her passing, social media was filled with an outpouring of memories, condolences and heartfelt tributes to Nenette and her family, a testament to the countless lives she touched throughout her years of service.
These words may never be enough to capture the full measure of a life lived with such passion and purpose.
Thank you, Nenette, for advocating for Boracay and for believing in its people. Your spirit will live on in the many lives you touched and inspired.
Your legacy of service, culture, care for nature and love for Aklan will live on. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You will be sorely missed.
You fought the good fight for us, and now it is our turn. We will do our best to continue the good work you have started.
To her family and loved ones, may the Lord comfort your hearts and be by your side. May He give you peace and assurance in knowing that Nenette is safe in His arms and now rests in eternal peace.
May you rest in peace in God’s loving embrace, Manang Nenette. 🤍
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