Heartwarming: Foreigner recreates 1993 photo with ‘Ati’ kids in Boracay

It seems like someone won the recreate a photo challenge.

Josh O’Cock was photographed with the Ati kids in Boracay in the year 1993. Fast forward 27 years later, his father recreated the exact scene and shot with the same kids and it went viral.

Ati is an ethnic group in the Visayas and a local on the island of Boracay. Patrick O’Cock went on a vacation in Boracay in the year 1993 together with his son Josh O’Cock.

The viral photo was shared first in a Facebook community called Boracay Retrospective by Josh’s father Patrick himself. In all honesty, it was both the photo and the names that caught the attention of the netizens if you based in the comments. Patrick didn’t expect his post to viral though.

Dated September 26, 1993, as seen in the photo, the blond-haired boy was Josh together with the ethnic group Ati children taken in the Ati Village in Boracay.

You can see that in the 2020 version of the photo where Josh and the Ati kids are all grown up. It will make you realize that even before then, the relationship between foreigners and native Filipinos is of friendship and companionship.

Noticeable though that in the 1993 photo, there are 9 children, but only six in the recent 2020 picture. Speculations were made but thankfully you don’t have to worry as they are still very much alive just that they weren’t able to make it for the photo retake.

Josh also reposted the photo captioned, “Boracay is a very special place to me that I can’t wait to return to! My fiancé Georgia and I have a calling and a mission of love to help rebuild the school for the Ati children. This will be happening in the next few years!”

Josh is now a business consultant in Malta and Patrick never forgot the welcome and charm of Boracay and the Ati’s that he created a foundation called “Mission of Love Malta.”

It aims to help the children of the not financially capable Ati’s in Boracay in their education.

This article was originally published on vismin.ph.