Philippines' famed Boracay island under threat

Cecil Morella Yahoo News 9 Jul 10;

MANILA (AFP) – The Philippines' once pristine island of Boracay has become extremely overdeveloped, with its famous beach now choked by sewage and too many bars, the country's new tourism minister said Friday.

In a candid interview with AFP, Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim suggested it was time tourists visited equally beautiful beaches in the country other than Boracay, which the government said drew 650,000 tourists last year.

"If you go to Boracay you'd love the beach, you'd love the night life and the good restaurants. But it's so dense, it's so dense," Lim said.

"It is now, you know, too commercial. It's become Phuket," he said, referring to the much larger Thai beach resort island.

Lim, who joined President Benigno Aquino's cabinet when it took power on June 30, said the 10.3-square-kilometre (four-square-mile) central Philippine island of Boracay was a different place a generation ago.

The sprawl that followed the tourist dollars caused the seawater off the four-kilometre (2.5 mile) white-sand beachfront to sprout algae, which was fed by sewage from the hotels and restaurants, he said.

"Thirty years ago they tried to set the rules but they were not successful. The local government did not cooperate... so people started overbuilding," Lim said.

"Of course, bad sewage -- that's why (you are seeing) algae at certain times of the year. It's green. It's the result of the sewage seeping out.

"The algae there is not yucky, it's moss. Maybe fish eat it. But it's an indication that there's a problem below the surface."

Asked if the problem, which first made world headlines in the mid-1990s, had been solved, Lim said: "I'm not sure. I don't think so, that's why at certain times of the year the algae forms."

Lim said environmental and zoning regulations were not being enforced, leading to structures even being built inside the high-water mark.

"And they continue to build. They're building huge hotels in the mountains."

Lim suggested the government may in the end be unable to halt overdevelopment.

"We have world-class laws but nobody follows them," he said, adding tourists may just have to look elsewhere.

"The thing about Boracay is the quality of the sand. But there are other places that have better quality sand, but (they are) very expensive," Lim said.

Lim also voiced concern about a project approved by the previous government under then president Gloria Arroyo to extend Caticlan airport, just across a small strait from Boracay, so that it can take international flights.

"It will compound the problem because it is meant to lengthen the airport, bring in more tourists and there are too many tourists (already)," he said.

Environmentalists oppose the seven-year, 54-million-dollar project, which would more than double the runway length to 2.1 kilometres, because they believe it will damage the area's ecosytem and lead to sand erosion on Boracay.

Local lawyer Augusto Macam, who represents a number of Boracay tourist establishments, told AFP Lim was not giving the complete picture about the situation on Boracay.

"Maybe the secretary should take a look at the place first," Macam said.

"The responsible stakeholders are addressing the sewage problem and other environmental concerns," he said.

The problem, he said, was that the local government had allowed certain businesses to flout the rules.

"It's a problem of regulation and that is the duty of the government."