Decadent Filipino Stewarship
The news that the number 1 island in the world is turning into a garbage dump is very depressing. We should not waste time arguing who to blame for this atrocity and should instead offer a helping hand in averting islands decay.
The first time I came to the island of Boracay 20 years ago, it was pristine beyond description. Few families lived on the island and there were no sign of human littering anywhere; just you and mother nature. The tranquil beaches surrounding the island and its pink sands were spectacles that you can only find in your dreams. The island was so immaculate that words can't do justice in describing it.
I knew back then that people will flock to this island in just a few years.
Lo and behold, the island has attracted investors and visitors from all over the world. In fact, it was voted the number 1 island in the world by CondeNast and the likes for several consecutive years. But with infrastructures erected in all parts of the island, with little regard for the island's "natural" ecosystem and maintenance let alone poor planning, the island is slowly dying.
It's a shame that we Filipino's have to wait for our president to tell us what to do. I don't understand why we act like 3- year old kids - carefree, helpless, deprived of common sense. Maybe we can blame it to our Spanish colonizers, who for 500 years have enslaved us, degraded our dignity and reduced us into chimpanzees incapable of thinking on our own. There's some truth to this. We all know that the Spaniards has restricted access to education among other measures to continue the subjugation of the natives. But those times are over. We succeeded in eradicating the tyrannical rule not only by the Spaniards, but American, British and Japanese. So blaming history is not an option.
We can turn our fingers next to the politicians who for several decades have cunningly continued the slavery, oppression and the rule of the elite. Only this time, our masters are not of foreign blood but our very own children. Some would argue these are halflings, born of Spanish or American parent who embraced the Filipino culture by choice or by coercion. Regadless, we the Filipino people put these politicians into office either because we truly believe that they can make the change we have been clamoring for, or because we accepted a bribe.
We can point our fingers to many other culprits but this does not solve anything. The garbage problem will still be there. The crook and canny politician will still ocupy government offices. The moaist rebels will still be fighting and killing fellow Filipinos.
Unless we accept the fact each of us is both the problem and the solution to all the problems we have, our decadent behavior will destroy this country we call the Pearl of the Orient. If we don't learn from this blatant disregard of our pristine beaches and island, this will spread like cancer across the country and very soon, we will be left with just garbage and tourists will just have to shake their shoes and move on to other places.
Duterte slams top Philippine tourist island as 'cesspool'
The Philippines' famous white-sand island destination Boracay is drowning in faeces and may need to be shut down to protect the health of millions of visitors, President Rodrigo Duterte has warned.
The fiery leader gave his brutal assessment of the country's top tourist draw as he told hotels, restaurants and other businesses on the tiny central island to clean up or he would ban tourism there.
"I will close Boracay. Boracay is a cesspool," Duterte told a business forum in his southern home city of Davao late Friday, according to an official transcript released by the presidential palace Saturday.
"You go into the water, it's smelly. Smell of what? Shit. Because it all comes out in Boracay," he said.
Red-faced tourism department officials affirmed Duterte's assessment on Saturday, saying it reflected worsening sewage conditions on an island known globally for its pristine white sands and crystal clear waters.
"It's a shame that Boracay, which has repeatedly been recognised by prestigious travel magazines as the world's most beautiful island, may yet end up a paradise lost if water contamination continues," Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo said in a statement.
Department spokesman Ricky Alegre said a number of establishments drained their sewage directly into the sea.
"There are certain areas there (where)... some establishments have illegally tapped their sewage line into the water line," Alegre told AFP.
Of the 150 Boracay business establishments recently inspected by the government, only 25 were connected to the sewage line, he said.
Many establishments were also building too close to the beach and were even crowding into the roads of the 1,000-hectare (2,470-acre) island, Alegre added.
Boracay attracts more than two million tourists a year and brings in 56 billion pesos ($1.12 billion) in annual revenues, the department and industry sources said.
Duterte warned the situation was a looming environmental "disaster" and a "tragedy" that could soon drive visitors away from the island, located about 190 kilometres (308 miles) south of Manila.
He said he had ordered Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu to clean up Boracay or else.
"I'll give you six months. Clean the goddamn thing," he said he had told Cimatu.