Boracay ‘plan’ will lead to a bigger future mess
down in one clear, concise document for public consumption (as it should be), essentially involves simply “cleaning up” the island. Upgrading and improving the road is the most extensive work intended, and really the only “new” idea presented. Beyond that, the activity will focus on aggressively correcting violations of laws and regulations that already exist with respect to waste management, sanitary systems, zoning limits, and the legalities of business ownership, licensing, and registration.
Assuming all goes well, what the shutdown period will accomplish is to return Boracay to a state where it is cleaner, more comfortable, and more accessible to the business and visitor loads the island currently bears. This is completely inadequate, and within a relatively short period after it reopens—perhaps a year or two—Boracay is very likely to again be in the same sorry shape it is now, or even worse.
There are several glaring omissions in the current plan that make its eventual failure almost inevitable. First, as has been widely reported, the actual carrying capacity of the island – how many residents and visitors it can accommodate at any given time without overloading the infrastructure or causing environmental damage – is not actually known. The Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau (ERDB) of the DENR is reportedly working on that assessment, but has not produced it yet. Thus, the government is proceeding blindly with the rehabilitation; when it reopens, Boracay might instantly be overwhelmed, undoing all the effort to repair it.
On the other hand, if the government knew Boracay’s carrying capacity, limited development to match that, and then strictly enforced limitations on the numbers of visitors, Boracay would become a much more valuable tourism resource, because the limitation of supply (access to the island) in the face of continuing high demand for it would raise prices. This is a point that the current management of the Department of Tourism, whose understanding of “long-term” apparently means “next Wednesday,” completely misses, as demonstrated by the utter horror with which it has reacted to any suggestion that falls short of encouraging untrammeled expansion.
The current plan also does not productively address the role of the island’s small community of native Ati people, beyond generally acknowledging that they have a right to be there and need to be accommodated. Neither the government nor the activists who have taken up the cudgels for indigenous peoples’ rights have ever considered the potential economic part native communities can and should play in tourism enterprises; if they did, they would realize that addressing the economic aspects of the issue would automatically solve most of the contentious political and social issues.
The reason for this is that one key component of the marketability and sustainability of destination tourism is cultural authenticity. It may not mean as much to domes-
selling point for foreign visitors; after all, nice beaches are a dime a dozen in this part of the world. Offering something uniquely local adds some encouragement to prospective visitors to choose our nice beach instead of someone else’s. And real cultural authentic-
of colorful festivals or overdone native-themed restaurants.
My own home in the US is a perfect example of how letting local culture determine tourism development can lead to a very
I grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania—Amish Country, otherwise colloquial known as the home of the “Pennsylvania Dutch” (they’re actually of German descent). The conservative, deeply religious people are well-known for their plain style of living; they adhere to complicated doctrines that oblige them to shun most modern conveniences like electricity, telephones, mechanical farming equipment, and cars. A drive through some