Boracay through the years

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BY HERBERT VEGO
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Sunday, March 18, 2018
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ALTHOUGH two years have passed since I last visited Boracay Island, I am in no mood for another visit. Having missed the “paradise” that the beach used to be, I now wish for a time machine to transport me to the same place in the year 1982.

That was the year when I first set foot on Boracay (together with Panay News founder Danny Fajardo) on a sunny morning when the island was truly rustic. There was not a single concrete building at the beach front.  Spaced far between were a score of nipa huts and carinderias. We rented a two-bedroom hut for an overnight stay at twenty-five pesos only.

Backpackers from Germany made up most of the long-time occupants of the cottages at that time, according to our room boy. It was there where they could stretch the value of their meager pocket money.

The room boy briefed us on our own amenities: a wood-fueled parilla on which to broil fish, a box of match and a kerosene lamp. There was no electricity all over the island yet.

While resting in the cottage, we saw a group of native fishermen pushing their small boat ashore. We strolled over for whatever fish they had caught. Without haggling for a lower price, we paid them what they wanted for a plate of galunggong: five pesos! That solved our lunch and dinner problems.

At night we combed the beach. The scene of scantily-clad foreign couples kissing under the moonlight unfolded before our naked eyes.

Today, the island no longer projects the ambiance of a natural hideaway. High-rise and air-conditioned hotels like those in Metro Manila now line the beachfront, replacing the bamboo-and-nipa cottages. Were it not for the crystal-clear sea kissing the white-sand beach, the place could be mistaken for any other Philippine city, where no one could escape air pollution belched by tricycles running on narrow roads that betray poor infrastructure planning.

The shopping center known as D’ Mall reminds one of the crowded shops in space-starved Divisoria and Baclaran markets.

Unfortunately, Boracay is no longer friendly to poor Juan dela Cruz. If all you have is a thousand pesos – which used to be a princely amount – you are now too poor to afford a dinner and overnight hotel accommodation.

The bigger hotels are now mostly owned by foreign investors who have foreign, dollar-carrying guests in mind. That these hotels have swimming pools seem to indicate that the overlooking sea, polluted with waste water, is no longer fit for swimming.

That sort of “progress” must have driven away budget-conscious German backpackers. Most Boracay vacationists today are moneyed Chinese and South Koreans.

Like the German backpackers, however, these rich Asians might one day disappear. No thanks to the “green carpet” that often overlays the white-sand beach. According to Regional Director Jim Sampulna of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the green algae could have sprouted as consequence of untreated wastewater dumped into the sea.

While I fear the metaphorical threat of President Duterte to “bomb” Boracay, that sounds like a literal way to travel back in time to as early as the year 1968 when the place was just a beach-encircled forest with no road network; when it served as location of a Hollywood movie, starring Cliff Robertson and Michael Caine.

If the same actors were to come back to Boracay today, they would no longer recognize it as the place where they filmed Too Late the Hero.

Boracay was identified in that movie as the “New Hebrides.” It is still viewable on YouTube. (hvego31@gmail.com /PN)
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