ONE positive result of the government’s plan to rehabilitate Boracay is that it has called the nation’s attention to the serious problem of environmental degradation in many of our premier tourist destinations.
This is a refreshing development. The focus now is on the world-famous resort of Boracay and this is only because President Rodrigo Duterte has labelled the resort a cesspool and wants it restored to its pristine condition. The question remaining is whether to shut the resort down completely for at least six months or allow businesses to operate while the rehabilitation is going on.
The better option is a complete shutdown to avoid delays and for all the rehabilitation work to be completed properly. Most importantly, of all, it will allow the environment to regenerate which will take time. This cannot happen if tourists are allowed while work is going on because the level of coliform is simply too high.
The problem of Boracay, as everyone already knows, is not only limited to environmental degradation or the prevention of business establishments from discharging waste directly into the beach where people are swimming. A more important concern is the management of the island resort to make it sustainable for future generations to enjoy. It should be obvious to all that the 1,032 hectare island cannot support the number of people residing and vacationing there especially during the peak months. There are currently about 75,600 permanent residents in the tiny island which spikes to about 92,000 during the day. Clearly, the number of people in the island will degrade the environment even in the best of times.
The problem has also brought to fore the inability of local government units to professionally manage their tourist assets and whether there might be a need for the intervention of the national government and non-government organizations in the management of Boracay and other premier tourist resorts.
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In the old days, Baguio City was the ultimate Holy Week destination in the country. Everyone who matters in Philippine society together with ordinary folks who simply wanted to get away from the unbearable summer heat in the lowlands, always congregated in the city.
The rich would be at the Baguio Country Club while the ordinary folks would be at Burnham Park, Wright Park, Mines View and others.
Yes, people still come up to Baguio but fewer come each year. Traffic is heavy and the entire city is overcrowded. Baguio is now just one of the many tourist destinations in the country. The rich who have gotten richer simply fly to Hong Kong or elsewhere while the rest would rather go to the many beach resorts that have sprouted all over the country. This year, there was hardly any Holy Week crowd to speak of in the city. The only remaining allure of Baguio is still the comfortable temperature all year round but is now getting warmer every year due to climate change.
It is difficult to explain why the local government allowed so much destruction of the environment due to poor planning and uncontrolled construction. What has happened to Baguio is what we are witnessing in Boracay, but in a much smaller scale. While Boracay did it in just a couple decades, it took Baguio much longer and it is probably too late to be able to do anything about it.
If President Duterte did not label Boracay a cesspool, nothing would have been done and Boracay would have been allowed to deteriorate further. Now, at least something is going to be done to address the environmental degradation. It also looks like the other tourist spots will get the much-needed government attention to stop further damage.
What happened to Baguio, Boracay and others has not only shown the limitations of many of our local government units. Left on their own, local leaders fail in their duties to protect the environment. Rarely do we see LGU leaders who are forward looking, able to embrace the importance of planning and the necessity of employing competent people to help administer local government affairs professionally devoid of politics. Unfortunately, in many LGUs, politics is always mixed with everything that leaders do. Traffic and waste management are almost always bad because politics and corruption always get in the picture. If one looks at Boracay, the problem all started with the LGU allowing unrestricted construction, total lack of planning and perhaps corruption which is not always far away.
Fortunately, Boracay’s problems can still be remedied. Baguio’s problem is a lot worse and much bigger and is hard to see how it can be solved at all. If we want to stop further environmental degradation of Baguio, the national government will have to enter the picture. Without it, there will be no driving force to get things done.
One big problem is the biggest watershed of the city, the Busol watershed. There are now thousands of houses there. Another is Burnham Park, the only sizable open space in the city and still the premier tourist attraction. It is now being considered by the local government to become a huge parking area because of its inability to recruit competent traffic engineers to address the traffic problem and manage it more efficiently.
Unfortunately, the city officials seem to prefer the easy solution, even disregarding the national government program of mandating LGUs to maintain sizable green open spaces to preserve the environment and allow the people open areas to enjoy.