Posted on Tuesday, January 21, 2003

No quick fix for Boracay’s ills

By Nereo C. Lujan, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

Conclusion

BORACAY ISLAND — As early as the 1980s, national officials had begun worrying that this small island could only take so many visitors at a time and that a comprehensive development plan was needed to ensure its environment would not be damaged by the tourist onslaught.

In 1990, the Boracay Island Master Development Plan or BIMDP, an initiative of the Department of Tourism, was unveiled, and an inter-agency team was formed to implement it. The next year, however, Republic Act 7610 or the Local Govern­ment Code was passed, devolving to municipal and city governments the management of tourism areas and facilities. In Boracay’s case, this meant the municipality of Malay, Aklan.

The island has since become a case study of the ill effects of having a local government dominated by the wealthy and the powerful, whose concerns usually do not extend beyond their own personal interests. In Boracay, this has meant governance largely dictated by the wants of resort owners, who count among them the mayor and vice mayor.

By 1997, the year the infamous coliform crisis erupted in Boracay, experts such as urban planner William Trousdale were lamenting the rapid deterioration of the island’s environment. He said the ground water quality of Boracay was already known to have exceeded its threshold capacity as early as 1990 and blamed the coliform crisis on poor governance characterized by favoritism and lack of political will.

That situation persists to this day. Francis Gentoral, program manager of the Toronto-based Canadian Urban Institute comments, “The fact that there is already saltwater intrusion in the aquifers and that there is still human fecal pollution in the groundwater showed that no significant solution was introduced to address the problems in Boracay after the 1997 coliform crisis.”

He adds, “Saltwater intrusion and pollution are indications of over-development, which has become very evident because of a high population density, especially in the developed beach area.”

About 95 percent of Boracay’s households and commercial establishments are located in the island’s 80,000-square meter White Beach area. As of end-2001, Boracay had 217 resorts. It has a resident population of about 12,000, but an average of 22,000 visitors descend on the island each month.

Many people here welcome the continued popularity of the island, but not its over-development. Hans Klent, a Swede who is on his fifth visit to Boracay, says, “They build too many hotels here and I am afraid for that. It’s too much developed.”

What is happening in Boracay is a far cry from the vision of the BIMDP, which sought to ensure sustainable development for the island.

The plan projected the deve­lopment of forest reserves (278.19 hectares), orchards (158 hectares), a nature reserve (11.24 hectares), marshlands, lagoons (71 hectares) and a golf course (117.47 hectares). It also mandated that there could be no construction in places less than 25 meters from the mean high water line, the average of the high tide and low tide. The plan set height restric­tions on buildings, a six-meter right-of-way for interior lots or develop­ments, and a deve­lopment density of 60 percent of the total land area, leaving 40 percent for open space.

Alma Bele­jerdos, Ma­lay’s planning and deve­lopment officer, describes the BIMDP as “very idealistic and hard to im­plement” because some of its recom­mended land uses ignored existing developments. Yet in 1990, the muni­cipal council of Malay adopted the zoning regu­lations set in the BIMDP anyway, by enacting Ordinance No. 44.

Municipal officials now say though that after devolution, the zoning regulations were ignored on the pretext that the ordinance was approved before the code was enacted and that new, validating ordinances must be passed. The Malay government also chose to ignore the BIMDP guidelines after 1992, save for those on solid waste management.

It was only after the 1997 coliform scandal that the Malay municipal council decided to adopt the other BIMDP guidelines and passed ordinances in accordance with these, including one that regulates the construction of buildings and other structures on Boracay.

The enforcement of these ordinances, however, has been lax, if not altogether absent. Mayor Ceciron Cawaling himself admits that he has found it difficult to enforce them because, he reasons, he is just on his first term.

“Yung mga problema nag-e-exist na yan before, so hindi ko naman pwedeng sagasaan kaagad yan (Those problems have been existing before I became mayor, and I can’t just run roughshod over them outright),” he says. The way Cawaling sees it, he first needs to solve other problems like the lack of a mooring area for pump boats serving the Boracay-Caticlan routes and the need for pump boats for the Bantay Dagat and communication facilities for police outposts.

Aklan board member Jose Yap, Malay mayor from 1992 to 2001, says that during his term, he had been very strict in implementing ordinances, particularly those banning pump boats from mooring within 50 meters of the shore and motor vehicles from being driven on the beach.

He adds that during his term, most resorts had voluntarily demolished structures found to be in violation of the laws. But he admits that he sometimes acceded to requests by some resorts to wait until the illegal structures became dilapidated before they were demolished.

Some Boracaynons are displeased with Yap, saying the former mayor had been both selective and lenient in enforcing ordinances.

There now seems to be a prevailing attitude here that those who violate such ordinances have little to worry about. Municipal engineer Elizer Casidsid, for instance, says that since January 2002, at least 11 resorts have been found in violation of Ordinance 2000-131.

This ordinance limits buildings to three stories and mandates that only structures 150 meters from the edge of the no-build zone be allowed the maximum height of 14 meters. The ordinance also mandates a development density of 60 percent of the total land area, leaving 40 percent to open space.

The penalty for violating the ordinance is a fine of P2,500 for owners and operators of buildings and structures. Moreover, if the violation is not corrected three months following the issuance of the third and final notice, the building or structure will be demolished. Contractors, architects or engineers of the buildings found to have violations will also be fined P2,500 or be imprisoned for six months.

But some owners of resorts and business establishments question the ordinance’s provisions, saying the National Building Code does not limit the height of buildings and allows maximum use of a lot area.

This may be why Club Panoly Resort has a four-story building that is nearly finished. When asked to comment, though, its assistant resident manager, Ramon Pacificar, said: “That building is not yet operational and it is too premature for me to comment whether or not it has a violation.”

Manoc-Manoc Barangay Captain Joe Gelito, for his part, has a unique argument why he has all the right to have a four-story house. Gelito, who last Oct. 15 received his third and final notice regarding his violation of Ordinance 2000-131, says, “We are short people, so even if the building is only 14 meters tall, it can be compressed in such a way that it will have four floors.”

Then there is Ordinance No. 96-97, which provides a 25-meter setback from markers established by the Department of Tourism in the late 1980s, plus a five-meter additional setback from the edge of the “no-build area.”

In 1999, the DOT also asked the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority or NAMRIA to establish new markers because the old ones were gone by then. Up to now, however, the municipal council refuses to recognize the new markers because, says Vice Mayor Floribar Bautista, they are not in the same location as the original markers.

He also says that the NAMRIA markers altered some of the no-build areas because they were installed in a straight line, ignoring the beach’s curvature. Some no-build areas widened while others shrank, thus allowing more development in the beachfront area, says Bautista.

Councilor and environment committee chair Dante Pagsugiron seconds this, saying that after the markers were established, his committee found that some were located only about five meters from the mean high water line and that NAMRIA failed to explain the discrepancy to them.

Lt. Cmdr. Amante Caluya of NAMRIA counters that the mean high water level in Boracay was identified using the satellite-aided global positioning system, which he says is “very accurate and …can never be questioned.”

Members of the political opposition in Malay say the council refuses to recognize the NAMRIA markers because these shrink the no-build area in Bgy. Balahag where Galaxy Beach Resort and Bans Beach Resort — owned by Mayor Cawaling and Vice Mayor Bautista, respectively — are located, essentially allowing the owners of the property in front of the two resorts to develop the area. Some 30 other establishments are also affected.

Bautista, however, insists that he is opposed to the new markers because NAMRIA “ignored the contour of the beach and placed the markers in a straight line,” and not because he fears development will be allowed in front of his resort.

Mayor Cawaling says he has no complaints about the new markers. Still, he has not settled the impasse over them, putting the enforcement of Ordinance 96-97 in limbo.

All these have led people such as environmental activist and artist Perry Argel to become frustrated with Malay offi­cials. “They are more concerned with stray dogs and the setback for the docking of sail­boats in the beach area than those that greatly affect the island like deve­lop­ment setback and den­sity re­quire­­ments,” he grum­bles.

Balabag Ba­rangay Captain Glenn Sacapano says he misses the time when the DOT still had an active role in managing Bora­cay. He says the DOT was able to control deve­lopment because “they are not politicians and they have no inte­rest to protect.”

In July 2001, the DOT in Western Visayas proposed the creation of the Boracay Development Authority or BDA, which would have direct and active control over the imple­mentation of the BIMDP. The BDA’s funding would come from fees collected from business operators.

The DOT had apparently heeded the recommendations offered by urban planner Trousdale in a December 1997 study. Trousdale said there is a need for a new governance system in Boracay, citing the effectiveness of innovative approaches in other places such as Palawan.

Trousdale noted that Palawan could count on the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, a multi-sector and interdisciplinary body, which under the law is tasked with the implementation and policy direction of a strategic environ­mental plan for the province.

But Aklan and Malay government officials do not want to lose any of their powers over Boracay.

Gov. Florencio Miraflores says that if any authority is installed here, it should be within the control of the local government unit, like the Chinatown Development Authority, which oversees development in the Divisoria-Binondo area and is under the Manila city government.

Mayor Cawaling says there is no need for a governing body for Boracay because the provisions of the Local Government Code are enough to ensure that the island is managed well.

CUI’s Gentoral suggests that in creating a management body for Boracay, two lessons on gover­nance approach must be considered. He says that first, there is an observed fear of loss of municipal and barangay control of Boracay. Second, he says, many powerful interests who routinely ignore the law might resent the closer monitoring that is one of the purposes of the proposed authority.

Based on these, Gentoral thinks that any proposed management body for Boracay should be composed of multiple stake­holders who would “reconcile the varied and conflicting visions for Boracay under the framework of good governance, environmental responsibility and social equity.”

Writing months after the coliform crisis here, Trousdale in his 1997 study said, “Governance should be the issue on Boracay, and there will be no quick fix. Commitment to effective and fair governance will require strong local political leadership and support from the national agen­cies, improved government administration and commitment from all stakeholders.”

First Part