IT IS IRONIC, even intriguing, that while the government recommends Boracay Island’s closure for six months of supposed rehabilitation, it is allowing the entry and construction of a mega casino-resort there.
The Palace’s denial sounds hollow. Through the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., the government granted Galaxy Entertainment Group and its listed local partner Leisure and Resorts World Corp. a gaming license to operate a $500-million integrated 23-hectare casino-resort in Boracay.
The rehabilitation of Boracay’s waters and forests and the setting up of environmental safeguards to prevent the deterioration of the island is long overdue. The proliferation of coliform bacteria has hounded Boracay over the past 20 years. In the past, to supposedly remedy the situation, a potable water supply system was installed while a sewage treatment plant and a solid waste disposal system run by the Philippine Tourism Authority were also put in place. But several years later, the Environment department reported that the coliform problem persisted.
Tourism secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo and Environment secretary Roy Cimatu, following an aerial inspection over the island early this year, called for sweeping reforms like fast-tracking programs and projects to address the island’s environmental problems. Is the mega casino-resort one of the solutions?
Its entry ort could add more burden to the island’s people and environment. The carrying capacity – or the population that an area can support without undergoing deterioration – of Boracay was estimated to have been exceeded in the year 2010 or 2011 yet, according to the Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources itself. In 2009, only an average of 9,362 visitors and tourists flocked to Boracay every day, which was still within the carrying capacity. Today the island is hosting an average of 14,182 visitors daily.
Does the government really know that it is doing in Boracay?
