A new role for Boracay to benefit farmers?

If there is anything that Filipinos did not know or simply missed out, is that October 2008 decision by the Supreme Court (SC) that had classified Boracay Island as both forest and agricultural land that belongs to the government when it junked ownership claims by several resort owners. In the end, now we know that the Philippine government has every right to shut down Boracay Island. No wonder we did not hear of any petition filed in the SC seeking to stop the government from implementing the closure of this famous tourism destination, dubbed as one of the world’s best island resorts, because the people having business in Boracay already knew they have little or no rights to the properties they built on.

If this is so… it just makes me wonder how the resort and hotel owners were able to build their properties in what is known as inalienable land. In my book, this issue is greater than the environmental issue that made Pres. Rodrigo Duterte close Boracay for the next six months. If not for the Philippine STAR article last Monday entitled, “Boracay wholly state-owned – 2008 SC ruling” I too would have never known this was true!

As the STAR article pointed out, “The SC classified the owners of resorts fronting the shoreline as merely ‘builders in good faith’ because the area is a forestland that cannot be privatized. The continued possession and considerable investment of private claimants do not automatically give them a vested right to Boracay. Nor do these give them a right to apply for a title to the land they are presently occupying,” said the 35-page decision penned by now retired Associate Justice Ruben Reyes.” This issue is also a complication for the proposed casino in Boracay.

However, last Monday, Pres. Duterte announced that he would not allow casinos to operate in Boracay and instead he would declare the 1,032 hectare resort island as an Agrarian Reform area.

This announcement by Pres. Duterte came after Pagcor had approved a $500-million integrated casino resort of Macau’s Galaxy Entertainment Group and its local partner, AB Leisure Exponent Inc., a unit of the publicly listed Leisure and Resorts World Corp. Resorts World Manila also plans to start gaming operations at the Savoy Hotel, a component of Megaworld Corp.’s Boracay Coast development. All these projects are now in political limbo!

So the next phase of this “Battle for Boracay” is the proposal by Pres. Duterte to turn Boracay into a Land Reform area when he said, “I will give it to the farmers, to the Filipino first.” I have no quarrel with this for as long as proper systems or a cooperative would ran the entire island…where it can benefit farmers’ cooperatives. Of course there has to be a law that would be created to have the farmers benefit from the revenues of Boracay.

We learned that last year the Island of Boracay earned a total of P56,147,744,220.60 in tourism receipts according to the Aklan Provincial Tourism Office. These earnings came from the more than two million tourists that visited the resort island. This means that the Duterte administration has its work cut out for it. The Philippines is blessed to have a bright star in tourism because of Boracay Island. So its closure would ensure that the island would not become an environmental disaster.

So in the meantime that Boracay Island is closed, the Duterte administration must create a Cabinet committee to study how the farmers groups can benefit from the income of Boracay… while not jeopardizing our agriculture industry. I mean, if our farmers are earning more money than they can dream of because of their ownership of Boracay, they could stop planting their crops and jeopardize our agriculture industry. Pres. Duterte should strike the proper balance in solving the problem of Boracay.

* * *

I have always believed that Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno had a better chance of surviving her impeachment complaint than her predecessor, the late Chief Justice Renato Corona because he was visibly targeted by then Pres. Benigno Aquino III and no one came out to take his side. In short, CJ Corona’s position was doomed when Pres. Aquino targeted him for impeachment from the very beginning.

In my reading, CJ Sereno had a better chance because she literally went to town accepting speaking engagements here and there and everywhere to secure the sympathies of the people. Her huge mistake was accusing Pres. Duterte of being behind her planned ouster. Last Monday, Pres. Duterte lost his cool and declared to CJ Sereno, “I am now your enemy. You have to be out of the Supreme Court.” In short, the die has been cast and it’s only a matter of time when CJ Sereno is out of the SC.

* * *

Email: [email protected]