April 1 - 15, 2018
PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY
durianrepublic
by JJ Atencio
PARADISE LOST
The President is actually right:
Boracay has become a cesspool.
And took only thirty years to lose this
paradise island.
My first encounter with the powdery
white sands of Boracay was in 1988.
In the 80s, Boracay was not easy to
get to, but it was well worth the trip.
The water was so clear and blue. So
clean that fish were swimming on the
shore. The beach had the whitest
finest sand I had ever seen. And the
sand was surprisingly cool to the feet
because Boracay sand has no silica
that absorbs heat.
I stayed in a beach front nipa hut
somewhere in what is now known as
Station 2. We had no airconditioning
and amenities except for a firm bed,
a ceiling fan and hot water. Back
then, the lodges just had first names:
Willy’s, Titay’s, Jonah’s.
Best of all, there were no people.
Deserted. You could lay on the
beach the whole day in the middle of
summer and see maybe five people
pass by. It was quiet, relaxing, simple.
Maybe thats why Boracay was like a
paradise back then.
There were no hotels and buildings.
DMall was yet to be built, and the
“dampa” was just really a clearing.
There were no banana boats, jet skis,
paraglides, windsurfs and rate parties.
Just sand, sea and a mango shake,
making Boracay the ultimate chill
place in the 80s.
Over the past thirty years since
then, I have gone back to the island
countless time as a tourist and on
business as part of a resort hotel
ownership. And so I was also witness
to the gentrification of the island,
as well as as its commercialization
and degradation. All that time, I’ve
realized a couple of things. Here’s
one of them.
While Boracay has experienced
massive development in the last thirty
years, this has been largely for the
benefit of businesses and hotels for
the tourists along the shoreline, to
the exclusion of other stakeholders
of the island: mainly the resident
“Boracaynons”.
I’ve had first hand experience some
time ago when a former staff of mine
invited me to visit his hometown in
the island. It was deep in the middle
of the island, away from the lights and
sounds of the
beach front, and
I was honestly
surprised by the
backwardness
of the living
conditions.
I
then
realised
that
many parts of
the island still
had no development, no electricity
and water. It seems that there exits
an invisible wall that separates the
luxurious income-rich beachfront
from the rest of the island that has
been largely ignored by everyone, for
so many years, government included.
There’s another reality on the “other
side of the road” that, for me, is the
untold story of Boracay.
These are the places at the back of
the hotels, beyond the main road that
wallow in poverty, extreme neglect,
poor health and sanitation, and
disproportionate income distribution.
Dark, muddy, dirty.
Take note that most of the
employees at the hotels in the island
are not from there. Sadly, this is
where most of the original resident
“Boracaynons” live. The prosperity
of island has left its original residents
excluded.
The cesspool that President
Duterte used to describe the ugliness
of the shoreline of Boracay is nothing
compared to the real cesspool at the
back that has festered for decades.
So while the President is right to
be worried of the polluted beach
water, the lack of sewerage facilities
of the hotels or the displacement of
businesses and employees because
of the closure, let’s also take note of
how development has neglected the
very people who call Boracay their
home.
I hope that, during this six months
of closure, whatever rehab plan the
government has not only focuses
on the environmental degradation
in the beach front, but take into
consideration the island as a whole
that includes the upliftment of the
infrastructure in non-tourist areas.
Because if all this is only for the
tourists, then this paradise is indeed
lost forever.
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