PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to close the country’s most popular tourist beach resort, the Boracay, which he described as a “cesspool,” if the vacation island’s environmental issues would not be resolved in six months.
The President instructed Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu on Saturday to address the growing environmental concern in Boracay, saying there would come a time that no more foreigners would go there because of contamination.
The Department of Tourism has previously said that human waste were found in the waters of Boracay.
The President even mentioned architect Felino Palafox that the architect was fully aware what was the tragedy in Boracay.
“Now, during days when I was there, the waste was just 20 meters away from the beach. At a distance you see cotton balls of Boracay [as] white sand,” he said.
“But when you go into the water, it’s smelly. Smell of what? S***.” Duterte said.
He said those going there were destroying the environment or the Republic of the Philippines and creating a disaster coming.
“There will be a time that no more foreigner will go there because he will have—when he goes back to the plane to where he belongs, he will be full of s*** going back and forth to the restroom,” he said.
Duterte said he already ordered Cimatu to fix the environmental issue in six months.
The DoT said visitors in this world-famous island hit a record high of 1,529,895 foreign and domestic tourist arrivals from January to September compared to last year’s 1,348,064 in 2016.
The Tourism department attributed the increasing tourist arrival to visits from East Asian and Southeast Asian countries.