Caticlan

They say that when a butterfly flutters its wings, a tempest happens elsewhere.

There is a bit of a hyperbole there, to be sure. But the saying underscores the interconnect-edness of the natural world that we can ignore only at our own peril.

Over in Aklan, there is a looming battle over a hill. Let me restate that for greater clarity: there is a looming battle to save a hill. It is a battle that pits scientists and ecologists on one end against awesome corporate power on the other.

Anyone who has flown to Boracay via the miniscule Caticlan airport could not have missed that hill. It sits right at the end of the notoriously short runway, a gentle slope of the land quietly sheltering the shoreline like a mother cuddles her child.

That slight elevation of the land does not even have its own name. It is simply referred to as Caticlan Hill, now that its continued existence is under threat.

Today, a large corporation has won the right to extend the Caticlan airport. It wants to extend the runway both inland and out to the sea. The final goal is to build a large international airport catering to the tourist horde trooping to Boracay Island, across the narrow channel, featuring one of the best beaches in the world.

The design for that extended runway requires that Caticlan Hill be leveled. Doing that, say the landform and microclimate specialists, will have disastrous effects on the area, including the famous beach of Boracay.

The provincial government of Aklan advocates keeping the Kalibo airport as the international port of entry and maintaining the Caticlan airport as a facility for domestic flights. Doing so will support the provincial government’s goal of expanding the tourism circuit to include the entire Panay island. Transforming the Caticlan facility into an international airport will undermine that goal.

Well, that is the economic argument for saving Caticlan Hill. It is a sound argument in itself. But the more interesting argument is the one presented by the scientists and ecologists.

What makes the sand on Boracay so white and so fine? Why is it that our feet are not scorched by the sand on Boracay even in the hottest of days?

Several studies done by the UP Department of Geology, the US Geological Survey and our own DENR help explain the uniqueness of the Boracay beach. All of these studies underscore the importance of Caticlan Hill to the occurrence of that white beach and its continued existence.

That spectacular beach across the channel, it appears, is a child of the hill.

According to Dr. Ricarte Javelosa of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the DENR, the sand at Boracay is unlike those in other beaches. The others have sand composed largely of silica, which explains why they get very hot under the midday sun. The powdery sand at Boracay, on the other hand, comes from finely polished crushed coral from the bedrocks of Caticlan.

Javelosa’s study concludes that the main drivers for replenishing Boracay’s white powdery sand are the peculiar behavior of the wind, and therefore the waves, as both are tempered by the hill at Caticlan. The hill moderates the harsh winds of both the habagat and the amihan, converting them into gentle breezes swirling around the channel between Caticlan and Boracay, carrying the light sand particles that make that majestic beach.

If that hill is taken out, the harsh winds will expose the channel to the full force of the monsoon winds. The strong winds will carry the heavier topsoil onto the water, discoloring the beach. The same winds will create stronger waves that will crash onto the beach, dragging its fine coral sand back into the water.

In a word, the hill provides the indispensable natural barrier that created the fragile microclimatic conditions that produced that majestic beach in the first place. Take out the hill and Boracay’s beach will become a muddy stretch.

Innocuous as this hill might seem, it is a critical barrier separating the high energy environment east of Panay island and the low energy environment west of the island. This is why the west side of Boracay has this majestic beach and its eastern side has a rocky coast.

Removing the hill will be the final disaster that ruins Boracay. The place has already been overbuilt. The sewage from all the establishments set up to service the tourist flood to the island has begun to poison the water.

The investment in a large international airport will be all for naught in the end. It will be a spear into the heart of the fragile ecosystem that produced the white beach that has become the tourist lure. If the beach is muddied, the tourists will disappear. The airport will be a white elephant.

On top of that, the removal of the hill will expose planes at the airport to “foreign object damage.” That is because the runway will now be exposed to the monsoon winds and all the stuff the winds might carry as they bear down on the airport.

The Environmental Clearance Certificate (ECC) issued for the project clearly identifies a domestic airport to be upgraded at Caticlan. The ECC makes no mention of leveling the hill at the end of the airport runway. Nor does it specifically mention the length of the runway’s extension out to sea.

Furthermore, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) prohibits the construction of international airports within a 25-mile radius from each other. This is because of the perils posed by heavy air traffic. The Kalibo airport is already an international airport. Raising the Caticlan facility to the same status will violate international safety regulations and will probably be blacklisted.

The authorities should better take a long hard look at this emerging controversy over plans to level the hill at Caticlan. Short-sighted corporate interest might result in the eventual death of a rare tourist destination.