One Beach, One Story · Alona Beach, Bohol · October 2026 · 4 min

Alona Beach, Bohol: The Beach Named After a 1973 Film Star

Until a film crew turned up, it was just the beach in Tawala. Somebody gave it the leading lady's name, and it has kept it for more than fifty years.

Alona Beach, on Panglao Island in Bohol, is the island's most popular beach, and one of the eight Lonely Planet picks as the best in the Philippines. Before 1973 it did not have a name. It was the white sand in Tawala, a barangay of Panglao, and that was all anyone needed to call it.

A film came to Bohol

In 1973 Fernando Poe Jr. shot the film Esteban in Bohol. A local account by Raul Gatal, a Bohol writer, has the plot: Poe plays a man blinded by marauding bandits, who gets his sight back and takes refuge in Baclayon Church when the bandits come again. His co-star was Alona Alegre.

Part of the film was shot on that stretch of sand in Tawala. Wikipedia says Alegre ran naked along the beach for the film. Gatal's version, from 2013, is gentler: she is seen frolicking on a stretch of virginal white sand.

How a beach gets a name

There were no tourist facilities on the beach then, not even a toilet. According to Gatal, who heard it from a witness who asked not to be named, the film crew asked what the beach was called. The people watching answered, together, Alona Beach. The name stuck.

A film crew asked the beach's name. The crowd gave them the star's, and the beach has used it ever since.

Who she was

Alona Alegre was born Maria Lourdes Jalandoni Salvador in 1948, the daughter of the stage impresario Lou Salvador and the LVN actress Inday Jalandoni. She made her film debut at seven, in the 1955 film Tagapagmana. She died on 9 December 2018, aged 70. The beach still carries her stage name.

Then everybody came

Today Alona is about 2 km from Bohol-Panglao International Airport, with white sand, low rocky cliffs and a coral reef close to shore. Restaurants, bars, resorts and dive shops line both sides, and the marine reserves of Balicasag and Pamilacan islands are a boat ride away. Wikivoyage calls it Panglao's most popular spot.

Wikipedia says the beach is usually busy, with an estimated one million visitors per day in peak season, citing a 2014 survey. We measured the sand: 837 metres.

The clean-up

After Boracay was closed for redevelopment in 2018, the Environment Secretary, Roy Cimatu, ordered the demolition of structures inside the 20-metre easement zone of Panglao's beaches, Alona included. Among the things that came down were a two-storey building and sea walls.

Is it worth it?

We rate it Worth a detour, and the name is the reason it moves up: a beach that got its name from a film shoot is a find. Go for the reef and the dive trips. The underwater current can be strong at times and turns the water cloudy, and from the Tagbilaran ferry terminal a taxi costs ₱500 to 600.