Trouble in Paradise: Boracay overcrowded
BY EDSON C. TANDOC JR

BORACAY - It's getting more and more crowded and the barangay (village) chairman of one of the three villages on this popular island is not happy.The increasing number of tourists was fine as tourists were helping the local economy, said 51-year-old Balabag, Malay chairman Glenn Sacapaño.

But the mushrooming of bars, shops, and resorts here had been threatening the future of the island he swore to protect, Sacapaño said.Last year, more than 556,000 tourists, 342,052 of who were foreigners visited the island in the province of Aklan, figures from the tourism office here said.

The figure is higher than the 499,457 tourists (321, 893 foreigners) who visited the island in 2005, despite the typhoons which hit the province late last year."If you ask now, there are no specific action plans for the island in the next few years," said Sacapaño.

"If more and more establishments are put up here, there will be no more open spaces left. We will lose Boracay," Sacapaño also said.

There are already efforts to improve the preserve the beauty of Boracay, according to the Department of Tourism.

But Consuelo Padilla, presidential assistant secretary for Boracay, said existing laws had not been strictly implemented and new policies had been facing road blocks.

Beat, a 36-year-old Swiss National who is here for a six-week vacation, is awed by the white-sand beach. He thought the island was both "nice and strange." But he also found it overcrowded.

"It is too much for me," he said, when asked about the resorts, shops, and bars on the shorelines."I know there are other beautiful islands here and I wonder why the [shops] are all in Boracay," he added.

He said that he had a friend who went here more than 15 years ago. She described the island to him as a "paradise," where only a few shops lined the wide and quiet streets.But the island is much different now and Padilla, for instance, expressed concern about the narrow arteries connecting areas in the island.

Last week, Padilla said a child was accidentally hit by a vehicle. The child was walking on the main road, which had no sidewalks, she said.

There are no more spaces left for parking, Sacapaño lamented. The island has also been facing a garbage crisis and there have been problems with the sewerage system, which was usually clogged because of accumulated grease and improper use.

Padilla said the island was "overdeveloped [but] lacked urban planning."She cited laws saying a 25-meter setback should be observed from the shoreline, but many resorts were already on the shoreline.

Structures should also be 15 meters away from the main road under national laws, or six and a half meters away according to a provincial ordinance, or at least three and a half meters away under the municipal ordinance, she said.But some resorts do not maintain easements from the island's Main Road.

Walls are built immediately at the edge of the narrow pavement.The Philippine Tourism Authority has started the construction of a drainage system on Main Road to solve the flooding problem in the island.

The project, done in coordination with the provincial government of Aklan and the Malay municipal government, will also provide for an elevated sidewalk to cover the drainage canals.But it has been temporarily halted by a court order as some resort owners had gone to court to stop the project, Padilla said.

The national government has also released Presidential Proclamation 1064 in May 2006, classifying some lots in the island as alienable and disposable, enabling the government to bid the lots out even if establishments, which still do not have land titles, exist on them.

The government said the proclamation could pave the way for urban re-planning of the island but some resort owners had questioned the proclamation before the court, saying it will jeopardize the tourism industry.

Padilla said the implementing rules and regulations for the proclamation were still pending before the Department of Environment and Natural Resources so the order could not be implemented yet.

Padilla said the island had become the destination of "massive lower spenders" from being the choice spot of "individual high spenders."The sheer volume of tourists was generating bigger volumes of wastes, she explained.

Barangay chairman Sacapaño said: "The kind of development here is wrong."He instead referred to a master plan crafted for the island as early as 1991 but was never followed.He said the plan was complete with road networks and other specific provisions which would have "preserved" Boracay.

For instance, the plan provided for the establishment of hotels to accommodate only 2,000 rooms.

But according to him, there are now over 300 establishments registered in his barangay alone, and the hotels and resorts could total more than 6,000 rooms.But in the meantime, the DoT and the barangay units are trying to fix the garbage problem in the island.

The DoT had set up material recovery facilities or MRFs in each of the three villages in the island. Wastes collected were segregated into biodegradable materials, which were turned into and sold as compost; recyclables, like bottles and newspapers which were also sold; and residuals, which were to be dumped in a landfill in the mainland Aklan.

The system had generated jobs for the residents, said Padilla, who had been overseeing the project.The DoT is now preparing to fund the construction of buildings to house these MRFs.

While other problems and issues still hound the island, Padilla said she hoped the MRFs in Boracay would serve as an example to other areas in the country.