THE provincial government of Bohol is setting up a committee to review investments and applications for resort developments to ensure these respect environmental laws.
Bohol Gov. Erico Aristotle Aumentado said this committee will include a representative from the Department of Tourism (DOT). He met recently with Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco. “We will create, through an ordinance, our own committee for clearer policy and guidelines. We’ll call it RED COM, or Review and Development Committee. DOT will be part of this committee. Every time they [investors] will ask for PAMB [Protected Area Management Board] clearance, they will pass through this committee,” he said.
He added, “There are environmentalists and landscaping architects on board so that before the permit application process for those developers who are located in protected zones, their property can be tracked first if it does not conflict with our sustainable tourism agenda.”
‘Amend law creating PAMB’
The meeting was held at BE Grand Resort in Panglao Island, on the sidelines of an international conference last week, to discuss issues relating to the construction of the controversial Captain’s Peak Garden & Resort within Chocolate Hills at Sagbayan town.
The DOT has said the resort, which has been operating since March 2018, was not accredited with the agency. The Sagbayan municipal government eventually closed the resort after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources said the establishment had no environmental compliance certificate. (See, “Controversial resort within Chocolate Hills now closed,” in the BusinessMirror, March 15, 2024.)
For her part, Frasco said the DOT wants a seat at the PAMB to be able to recommend initiatives to further preserve in legislated protected areas in tourism destinations like Bohol. “Since PAMB is a creation of law and DOT is not a part of PAMB, we are lobbying for legislation to amend its composition to include the DOT, so it may give its insights and guidance on sustainable tourism development for protected areas,” she said.
The PAMB, a unit of the DENR, is led by the national agency’s regional directors, where the protected areas are located. Other PAMB members also include representatives from the province, the municipal government, barangay, nongovernment organizations or local community organizations, including other government agencies involved in the management of the protected area. The unit was created in 1992 in compliance with Republic Act 7856, providing for the establishment and management of a National Integrated Protected Areas System.
Frasco also offered support to the Bohol government to encourage tourism establishments to apply for DOT accreditation “to elevate the standards of operations of tourist establishments and ensure the protection of tourists.”
1-M tourists in 2023
The Department of the Interior and Local Government in fact issued a memorandum circular 2019-17 requiring local government units to “ensure that all PTEs [primary tourism enterprises] have complied with and have obtained DOT accreditation before operations,” the latter a requirement under Republic Act No. 9593 (Tourism Act of 2009). The DILG reiterated the order in an advisory released in August 2022, adding that LGUs should close down the PTEs if the latter fail to act on their deficiencies.
PTEs include hotels, resorts, and other accommodation establishments, travel and tour agencies, tourist transport operators, tourism frontliners, along with convention and exhibition organizers. In the case of Captain’s Peak Resort, it was issued a business permit periodically by the Sagbayan municipal government, the last time in January this year.
According to the Bohol provincial tourism office, the province welcomed over 1 million tourists in 2023, which was almost 64 percent of the tourists who arrived in 2019, prior to the pandemic. Of last year’s tourist arrivals, 33 percent were foreigners, majority of whom were South Koreans, while 67 percent were domestic travelers. Tourists spent some P75.6 billion in the province’s economy in 2023.
Image credits: Gov. Aumentado FB Account