The Boracay rehabilitation

I wonder how Boracay’s rehabilitation is progressing after all the heavy security and the strict shutdown of the island. I hope they let journalists in so that there would be proper documentation of the rehabilitation process.  

What I’ve gathered so far is that workers are busy fixing roads and canals or demolishing illegal structures. 

Some including residents and business owners have come to terms with the island’s shutdown.  

Businesses back closure 

For instance, during a recent briefing, Vista Land president & CEO Manuel Paolo Villar said the group’s businesses – a small resort they acquired and an upscale condotel – in the island are closed in compliance with the government’s directive.  

Indeed, some business owners agree that Boracay really needs a breather and must be repaired after years of neglect and mindless development.

There’s also talk on the demolition of various structures. Many business owners even volunteered to take down encroaching structures. In some cases, entire buildings had to be torn down including beach umbrellas, unsightly tents, bars, and stalls that once lined Boracay’s famed white beaches.

Even Hong Kong-based Galaxy Entertainment Group (GEG) expressed full support to President Duterte’s policy decision to temporarily close Boracay even as it announced a $500 million project in the island, the South China Morning Post recently reported.

 “We support the Philippine government’s decision to temporarily close Boracay and their restoration initiative for the island,” GEG said in a filing in Hong Kong. 

GEG and its Philippine partner Leisure and Resorts World Corp. (LRWC) earlier disclosed plans of investing up to $500-million for a resort-casino in the island. After receiving a provisional gaming license from the Philippine Amusements and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), GEG and LRWC said they would build close to a hundred villas for high net worth clients and their families from the Philippines and the rest of Asia. 

GEG chairman Lui Che Woo said  their plan to develop a world class villa-centric resort would enhance the standard of tourism facilities in Boracay and help the island regain its acclaimed status. 

Furthermore, proponents maintain that what they plan to build is not a mega structure, but stand alone luxury villas. LRWC, the local partner, stressed the planned casino would occupy only a tiny portion of the planned 23-hectare project. 

Solaire Resort & Casino 

Meanwhile, Solaire Resort said it is not constructing a casino in the island, contrary to reports.  “We would never consider building a casino on such pristine land,” Katrina Razon, the daughter of tycoon Enrique Razon, said in her social media account. 

Solaire Resort likewise issued an official statement: “We have received information that there is a development project in Boracay, Aklan under the name Boracay Solaire Resort. We would like to make it clear that this development project is not in any manner, directly or indirectly connected to, or affiliated with Solaire Resort & Casino and Bloomberry Resorts Corp.

Untreated waste water, the culprit 

In any case, I believe that aside from just rehabilitating the island, the government should also ensure that business owners found guilty of violating the environmental regulations should be held liable.

 According to TV reports for instance, several prominent resorts including those who strongly opposed the closure, were found to have been illegally discharging foul smelling water directly to the sea. And then there’s the issue of Boracay’s untreated wastewater.

 After a series of government inspections, industry sources said that it’s becoming increasingly clear that Boracay’s woes stem primarily from dirty water and inadequate sewage facilities.

The only existing sewerage system in the island was built and funded through an P800 million loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).  

Originally managed by the Boracay Waterworks and Sewerage System (BWSS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Philippine Tourism Authority, which is now the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority or TIEZA, the sewerage system was taken over by the Boracay Island Water Co.  (BIWC) in 2010.  

Due to undersized pipes incapable of handling Boracay’s huge sewage volume, engineers from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) have observed that in some low lying areas, foul smelling sewage and human waste spill out into the streets, flow down to the canals, and drain out to sea even weeks after closure. 

This is why personnel from the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) are still reportedly monitoring high coliform levels in Boracay’s waters. 

With the sewage system bursting at the seams, businesses and households would be unable to connect to the system. Thus, the DENR is reportedly considering stop-gap measures like requiring large resorts and household clusters to treat at source and recycle water. That way, they can help mitigate the flow of dirty water into the ocean.

 All eyes are now on Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu and his inter-agency team.  Whether or not Boracay’s restoration into the tropical paradise it once was would succeed or not remains to be seen.

Will it degenerate into a permanent ‘cesspool’ or reclaim its former glory? We’ll just have to wait and see. 

Iris Gonzales’ e-mail address is [email protected]