Bye-bye, Boracay
Philippine resort island closing to tourists for major cleanup
BORACAY, the Philippines — The Philippines shuttered its famous holiday island Boracay to tourists on Thursday for a six-month cleanup, which the government has imposed with a show of its security forces.
Coast Guard boats were on patrol and assault-rifle wielding police were posted at entry points to the once-pristine island that has become tainted by heavy commercialization and overdevelopment.
Regional police head Cesar Binag said the shutdown began past midnight, with tourists barred from boarding the ferry that is the main way onto the island.
“Boracay is officially closed to tourists. We are not closing establishments but tourists cannot enter. We are implementing the instruction of the president,” Binag said.
About 600 policemen were deployed, with some performing lifelike drills including riot officers battling bottle-hurling protesters and mock hostage taking of sunbathers — all before startled locals.
The government conceded on Thursday there was no real threat, with Interior Ministry Assistant Secretary Epimaco Densing saying the security presence was “just part of preparing for the worst”.
President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the shutdown this month after calling the resort a “cesspool”, dirtied by tourism-related businesses dumping raw sewage directly into the ocean.
During the closure only residents with ID cards are allowed to board ferries to the tiny island that is home to around 40,000 people.
On Thursday morning, police began patrolling the beach to enforce a rule prohibiting swimming except in one designated area marked by buoys.
Resistance was light in the run-up to the closure, with no violent protests and most of the criticism focusing on the fate of roughly 30,000 people employed in the island’s bustling tourist trade.
The workers were drawn by the relatively good wages on the island that has seen the number of visitors roughly quadruple to 2 million since 2006.
Those tourists, a growing number of whom are Chinese and South Korean, pumped about $1 billion into the Philippine economy last year.
Unchecked construction has eaten away at the island’s natural beauty, while slimy algae-filled waves in some areas and mountains of discarded drink bottles are problems acknowledged even by critics of the shutdown.
“I’m all for rehabilitation and preserving it but clearly this is not the way to do it,” Philippine politics expert Ashley Acedillo said.
He called the closure an “illthought through, unplanned and knee-jerk action” that did not take into account the economic impact on the island’s workers and business community.