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Boracay, with its crystal-clear water, white powder sand and
constant sunshine, presents itself as a slice of paradise. But
scratch the surface and the island is seething with unrest.
The bone-shaped, 1,000-hectare island in central
Philippines has been transformed in 40 years from a sleepy limestone
outcrop without electricity into one of the country’s priciest
chunks of real estate.
A fifth of the country’s tourist traffic,
mostly big-spending Americans and Europeans, winter along its
4.5-kilometer stretch of pristine beachfront that is drenched in
year-round tropical sunshine.
Kite-boarders, sailboats, banana boats, swimmers
and scuba-diving parties jostle for space along the clear,
turquoise-tinged waters that are a few yards from hotels, tattoo
parlors, bistros and other tourist havens.
But the scramble to secure ownership of some of
the most valuable real estate in the country has led to violence,
including tear gas, fires and allegations of kidnapping, as well as
prolonged court action.
Legal battle
Recently, a 1.5-hectare warren of tourist shops,
restaurants and inns was burnt to the ground ending one family’s
long, legal fight to keep the property they had spent years
developing.
The Supreme Court has since awarded the property
to a major developer.
Police reported finding “Molotov cocktails and
an unknown flammable substance” among the ruins—and despite
rumors, no one seriously believes the owners would burn down their
own possessions.
Nearby, Australian hotelier Gregory Hutchinson
is still barricaded on the top floor of the 6,000-square-meter Sand
Castles resort after his landlord canceled his lease and seized the
ground floor with the help of armed private security.
The glass facade was shattered in the takeover
skirmish. No one was hurt but the hotel guests fled, leaving
fiberglass kayaks scattered in the yard.
Bad for business
“If these things [property disputes] continue,
no one in his right mind would want to come and visit this place,”
Supt. Arnold Ardiente, police chief of this tourist island told
Agence France-Presse, as his men brought food and toiletries
upstairs to Hutchinson and his family.
“It’s not good for the island,” Steve
Murray, a burly Australian shopkeeper who doubles as his country’s
consular warden for the area, said of the property disputes.
He has seen a few during his eight years here,
but “many of them are kept quiet” so as not to upset the
tourists.
Ardiente said: “There have been several
incidents involving land disputes that turned violent. People would
shoot at each other and people would die, but all these cases are
now in the courts.”
The local resort owners’ association, called
Boracay Foundation, is steering clear of the controversies and
refusing to comment.
Land ownership
Still, with the peak tourist season just a month
away, the locals are up in arms over a 2006 government edict that
declared 40 percent of the island a forest reserve.
The Supreme Court recently upheld President
Gloria Arroyo on the issue, throwing out private claimants’ bid to
secure legal titles to land on which hundreds of millions of dollars
have been sunk into tourist-related building improvements.
Only 10 percent of the area have land titles,
with the rest of the resort owners and residents essentially leasing
space by paying real-estate taxes.
“While it’s not really a major irritant
because people have a way of settling these, it has remained an
irritant because of the untitled nature of properties here on the
island,” said Florencio Miraflores, the congressman for the
district.
Miraflores, who also owns land here, is pushing
a bill that would allow families who have been in Boracay for 30
years to apply for legal titles to their plots.
With Philippine tourist arrivals projected to
break through the four million-mark this year despite a global
economic slowdown, three top hotel chains are expected to open
within a year.
Filipino-American hotelier Ariel Abriam, who is
buying up rights to beachside property here, accepts that, like in
Cancun or Waikiki, Boracay businesses would undergo consolidation
with only the big players left standing as the tourist destination
matures.
“All these little shops on the beachfront are
going to disappear. It’s just a matter of time,” said the ex-US
Navyman, who spent his pension to build the 30-room Boracay Beach
Club hotel that is favored by Filipino movie stars and retired US
servicemen.
-- AFP
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