Cold reception to Boracay land conversion plan

Senators, local government officials and stakeholders were cold to the planned conversion of Boracay Island as a land reform area, an idea being pushed by President Duterte.

Sentiments against the proposed declaration of the worldfamous tourist destination as land reform mounted at the resumption Wednesday of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources’ hearing on the state of the island following its closure last April 26.

During the hearing, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) admitted it was the President alone who decided to put Boracay under the government’s land reform program after its six-month rehabilitation.

DAR Undersecretary for Legal Affairs Luis Pangulayan said that even without the President’s order, the agency is already looking into declaring parts of the island as land reform and agrarian reform areas.

He cited Proclamation No. 1064, signed by former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, which classified parts of Boracay as protected forestlands and alienable and disposable agricultural lands.

But Sen. Cynthia Villar, committee chairperson, doubted that the beneficiaries of the proposed agrarian reform would use their lands for agriculture.

“I think even the beneficiaries in Boracay would not turn them into agricultural land. I think they would turn them into tourism facilities so they would earn more,” Villar said.

Villar, who also chairs the Senate agriculture committee, said the beneficiaries cannot profit from the granted lands if they are not educated on agriculture.

While she believes that President Duterte wants poor and indigenous families in Boracay to benefit from the profits of the island, Villar appealed that the plan be studied thoroughly.