Warning for Boracay stakeholders

Echoes From

BY JOHNNY DAYANG

The warning has been sounded. Boracay, one of the world’s top tourist destinations in the Asia-Pacific, is now endangered by the mindless manner its commercial establishments and households alike, dispose their wastes.

Recent TV reports showed blackish wastewater spewed by drainage pipes emptying the sea, lining Boracay’s shorelines. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has confirmed the very high colliform contamination of the area that threatens the health of tourist swimmers and beachcombers.

What will happen to Boracay and Malay town in Aklan should Boracay lose its tourism appeal? What will happen to the millions of pesos invested in the island? Before everything is lost, it is urgently imperative for Malay, Boracay investors and establishments, Boracay Foundation Inc. and the residents themselves who all benefit immensely from the island’s tourism industry, to address the problem immediately and concertedly. 

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The Albay Higher Education Contribution Scheme (AHECS), a novel study-now-pay-later scholarship program, that aims to produce at least one college graduate for every Albayano family, is a model for other LGUs. Patterned after an Australian scholarship program, it is hailed as among Albay’s effective development strategies.

AHECS was pioneered by Albay Gov. Joey Salceda in 2007 with an initial 34,000 scholars. Subsequently funded by a R700-million Land Bank loan, it has now benefited 77,137 scholars from poor families. Many of its graduates are now gainfully employed locally and abroad or have become entrepreneurs themselves. Its success has inspired Albay to expand the program’s objective to now include an additional technical-vocational and entrepreneur graduate per family.

AHECS also benefits 53 colleges and universities across Albay, led by state-owned Bicol University with which it has partnered. Records show AHECS has invested P16,235,000 for the 3,247 scholars who graduated from the Mariners’ Polytechnic Institute, a popular school for seafarers in Bicol. 

Last month at the Southern Luzon Technological College Foundation, Inc., Salceda was surprised when almost all the parents attending the graduation rites where he was speaker, stood up to thank him. It turned out about 80% of the graduating class were AHECS scholars. 

Interestingly, Albay is the country’s only LGU with its own institutionalized education program, administered by its Provincial Education Department, created by an Albay Provincial Board ordinance and duly approved by the Civil Service Commission, the Department of Education and the Department of Budget and Management.