spot_img
28.3 C
Philippines
Thursday, March 28, 2024

The death of an island

- Advertisement -

The die is cast. In a few days, Boracay Island, premier tourist destination of the Philippines and recognized by many travel magazines and associations as one of the most beautiful island in the world, will be closed to visitors. From April 26, outsiders will not be welcome to the island. Commercial traffic in its usually busy airport, where several dozen planes from Manila and other Philippine and Asian cities land every day, will shut down. The Malay Jetty, in the mainland of Aklan where weekly hundreds of boats ferry thousands of tourists to its white sand beaches and noisy night spots, will be like a ghost facility with only locals and government officials going back and forth to the island. The beaches of the island, full of swimmers in the day and sunset lovers at twilight, will be empty. Even media have been restricted in its access to the island for reasons only the government knows.

I actually support the closure, but with qualifications. I appreciate the political will of this President. President Duterte and the three lead cabinet members—Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu, Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año, and Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo—are taking a big risk in this decision. I will not second-guess them on this main decision.

As someone who was a high-level environment official during the Ramos administration from 1996-1998, I have seen how badly we have exploited and mismanaged that island. Summer of 1997 was the first time the state of the environment in Boracay headlined the news. But months earlier, our technical staff and colleagues in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources were already briefing then-secretary Victor Ramos about the worsening pollution situation. Coliform levels, indicative of bad human waste management, were rising astronomically.

As a result of this pollution finding, the DENR began meeting with tourism officials, local government officials, and resort owners to agree on mitigation measures. Frankly, those meetings were difficult as we met a strong resistance from the stakeholders on what everyone had to do to fix the problem. Eventually, Secretary Ramos had to declare Boracay an environmental disaster. He sent an enforcement team to the island that would make sure that the resorts and other business establishments comply with the law. I led that team and our approach was to do it establishment by establishment, delivering to each resort, restaurant, and facility a Notice of Violation where we detailed their violations and what they needed to do to come into compliance. There was resistance at first, including some defiant resort owners who refused to accept their NOVs, but eventually the stakeholders yielded and accepted later the orders for compliance with land and environmental laws.

As it is today, the problems of Boracay then were related to validity of land titles, respect for easement rules (especially in building structures in the beach, in lagoons, and similar places), pollution laws, and violations of the environmental impact assessment law. Although the resort and other business owners agreed to comply with our laws, it was clear to me even then that many of them were only compelled to do so. Once the pressure eased, they will go back to business as usual.

- Advertisement -

And that is what keeps on happening in Boracay. Time and again, the government would crack down but once the pressure is off, everyone—and that includes the responsible local and national government agencies—goes back to business as usual. Then, as today, there are those who are serious with environmental compliance. Certainly, you have many who continue to have a noncompliant modus operandi given the results of the environmental monitoring. The last time I was in Boracay was 10 years ago. I brought my family with me, hoping I could be proud that we had saved that island with our tough action 10 years earlier.

Alas no. It was dirty, crowded, noisy. One could not watch the sunset in peace. Waste was everywhere. And it was clear, for the trained eye, that coliform and other water pollution levels were once again uncontrollable. I promised then never to go back to Boracay.

An island that generates more than P50 billion of revenue a year has no excuse for why it has become a cesspool. Such a rich island can afford a world-class sewerage facility and enforcement of the strictest environmental rules. It can pay for the costs of a clean and pristine environment, including limiting visitors to a number that the island’s carrying capacity can bear.

I am in favor of a six-month closure, shorter or longer as its circumstances may require, because Boracay needs a full reset. Partial reform and limited efforts would not be taken seriously by the main business stakeholders; many of of them would just wait it out until the pressure is off.

While supportive of the closure, I do have caveats.

First, the government should ensure that all the affected workers and small business owners are supported during this period. They must not be left on their own to survive the difficult days ahead. Government must take on accountability and responsibility for the state of the island. If national and local government agencies did their jobs, we would not have seen the levels and decades of noncompliance that we have seen in the island.

Second, the government, consulting with stakeholders, must have a clear vision of what it wants with this island. It must determine its carrying capacity (defined as “the number of people, other living organisms, or crops that a region can support without environmental degradation”), once and for all make sure, as the island is reopened, that such capacity is not breached. Hard decisions must be made, including limiting the number of visitors a day, week, and month in the island. That means reducing the number of rooms currently available in Boracay. That means that under no circumstances should large scale developments like casinos, big hotels, and luxurious subdivisions should be allowed.

Third, the Ati, the original inhabitants and owners of Boracay, must be given social and environmental justice in the reset of the island. It is not acceptable that they have been marginalized and reduced to destitution. They must be given enough land—a dozen hectares perhaps—and resources to develop that land properly so they too benefit from the development of their homeland.

Sustainable tourism is possible. We can make Boracay clean, maybe not pristine but renewed to again claim it to be a real paradise. When that happens, I will break the promise I made in 2008 and go back to Boracay. I will happily write another column then and this time it will be entitled, “The rebirth of an island.”

Facebook: Antonio La Vina or tonylavs2 Twitter: tonylavs

- Advertisement -

LATEST NEWS

Popular Articles