I kissed a rock on my first visit to Dumaguete City. I was told it would bring me good luck. At the airport crowded with passengers eager to take a break from Manila during the Holy Week, I had run into a former general I knew. It turned out his wife, Fe Montano, was the mayor of a small, quaint town called San Jose just outside the city. It was she who later made me kiss the rock on top of a hill. But it wasn't an ordinary rock. Fenced by iron grills, the rock was supposed to mark the site of a religious miracle that took place a few years back.

   The mayor had organized pilgrimages, and she said it was on that hill that a quivering image of the Virgin Mary appeared before her group. She had an open-air chapel built, with the statue of the Lady of Lourdes adorned with bougainvillea.

"Do you see it?" she asked, pointing at some rough markings on the rock, I squinted my eyes.

"There's the eyes, the nose, the lips," she continued. Yes, I suppose, if one looked hard enough it could resemble…Jesus Christ. I believed her, so I kissed the rock.

   My run of good luck started right away: The Mayor put me up in an P800 a-day room at her beach resort, gratis. The resort had been a family property long before a young officer started coming to visit her on many summer afternoons. The general showed me black-and-white photos of himself as a lieutenant and his future wife; both of them were beaming, holding hands. When the land title was passed on to them, they built a 12-room resort called Wuthering Heights.

   That day the tide was high, and the waves were so rough they knocked the mayor's snorkeling goggles out of her hand and washed them away.

   Unseasonable rains fell, but by nightfall, the sea quieted down and we settled on the top deck to a sumptuous supper of native dishes. General Montano and the mayor gave me a hearty meal for on the following day, I would take and early morning boat ride to a small island province across the water. From the roof deck, I could see the outlines of the mysterious Visayan island that is known for witchcraft; Siquijor.

   In contrast to the goggle-snatching waves of San Jose, the waters off Siquijor were as placid as a lake's. But there was no cool night air to lull me to sleep as there always had been in other beaches. In the room I shared with friends at the Coco Beach Resort, we switched on the air conditioner. I thought it odd that Siquijor was once known as the Isa del Fuego during the Spanish Colonial times for the torches used for night fishing. In the past, Siquijor attracted few inhabitants. When seafarers died at sea, they were traditionally buried on the island. Today, Siquijor shows promise of tourism. Never mind the rumors about witches, curses, black magic and deadly potions.

   "It's part of Asian mysticism. If people can't explain it, they call it supernatural," said 71-year old Elizeo Rocamora. "Personally I don't take this mangkukulam (witch) business seriously. If it were true, something should have happened to me a long time ago. I mean, I've sent a lot of people to jail."

   Rocamora had been the island's justice ministry prosecutor for 20 years, starting when Siquijor (land size: 29,000 hectares) was officially declared a province in 1971. An afternoon with Rocamora, now retired, in his home in the town of Larena yielded numerous stories about his youth, his experiences during the war when he worked in the underground for the Americans and fooled the Japanese. He knew about the intrigues among the so-called healers, but he never saw proof of their supernatural power, or perhaps he was just never convinced.

   When he was in hiding during the war, there was an old woman who helped him and his men find shelter and food. But the townspeople accused her of being a witch, saying she would transform into a noisy black bird that descended upon their roofs at night.

   "This woman was ostracized and she became so distraught she committed suicide," Rocamora said. "This is probably why I don't like all this talk about witches."

   Witches aside, Siquijor is peaceful, beautiful and environmentally pristine. I dread the time it becomes a commercialized tourist spot. When I was there, the only foreign tourists billeted at the same resort was a German couple. Other less alluring beaches elsewhere in the Philippines were packed with tourists taking advantage of the Holy Week holidays.

   Siquijor, a relative poor province that mainly thrives on fishing and copra farming, is just starting to make itself known as an island paradise. In promoting the island for tourism, Governor Benjamin Aquino downplayed Siquijor's netherworldly reputation.

"There's black magic and there's white magic," the governor said. "What we do here is white magic," meaning the healers who supposedly cure illnesses with herbs that are unique to the province.

   But on Good Friday, the governor's concerns about the island's image didn't stop the shamans from collecting dirt, sand, shrubs and twigs…."ingredients" used to concoct their potions.

"We do this on Good Friday because there is no God on this day," said one of the healers, referring to the day of Christ's death. Around him were his fellow practitioners, explaining to me and my friends the powerful effects of their concoctions, how they could entice business customers, attract a good harvest of fish, and clear your skin of blemish.

"How about love potions?" one of my male friends asked. "Oh, yes, we've got one of those, " said veteran healer Juan Ponce. "All you've got to do is lather it up with your hands and then wipe it on the lady's ass." He said this so flippantly everyone burst into laughter.

   I failed to see any magic…black or white. Being in Siquijor was more than what I had expected. While others searched the island for a genuine mangkukulam, I swam and sunbathed on the beach with my new German friends. I floated on the water, without fear of jellyfish stings. By midafternoon the tide receded and soft winds carried me off to a nap. In the evenings, Edwin, the resort's waiter and all-around "boy", served us fresh-grilled seafood that was a bargain compared with the prices in Manila restaurants. Not so long ago, I had a similar holiday in Greece. My Greek friends insisted there were no islands more beautiful than their own. If they could come to Siquijor, I would prove them wrong.

   We left Siquijor by dawn Saturday. We caught a pump boat from the tiny wharf and it took us back to Dumaguete City. Well, not quite, it stopped in waist-deep water, a few meters from the shoreline. Wading porters unloaded cargo and carried passengers to shore. For a measly five pesos a 54-year-old man carried me on his back.

"Am I heavy?" I asked. "Yes, too heavy," he said. I gave him an extra five pesos. "Thank you," he said, "you make me happy."

   A day after we left Dumaguete, a typhoon struck the Visayan Islands, including Siquijor. Luckily, I made it back to Manila in time. I guess it was worthwhile kissing that rock.