GOVERNMENT economists are looking beyond the October 26 reopening of Boracay as the fund to help workers displaced with the April closure of island-resort has been depleted.
According to officials of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), efforts to rehabilitate Boracay as a primary tourist destination will continue beyond cleaning its waters and imposing activity restrictions on the beach.
In an interview, Neda Regional Development Office Undersecretary Adoracion M. Navarro told reporters the government and private sector will be investing in sewerage, sanitation and water projects for Boracay.
These will be contained in the Boracay Action Plan, which will be presented publicly after the official opening of the island to tourists today (Friday). Navarro said there will be a separate launch of the BAP, which will include the Neda, the Department of Tourism and the Department of the Interior and Local Government, among others.
“So we are reopening, there are interventions done by the government, but those are not enough. So I think that is the main message,” Navarro said. “We still need to implement projects and programs that will rehabilitate the ecosystem of Boracay.”
Navarro said these investments will include the expansion of the services of Boracay Island Water Co. Inc. and Boracay Tubi Systems Inc., which are the concessionaires for these services on the island.
Themes
THE focus of these investments, Navarro said, will be to address the factors that led to the problems of the island, particularly the poor sewerage and sanitation facilities in Boracay.
“We also included investment programs for sewerage,” Navarro said, adding to clarify that the investment is not only for tourism, but “it’s really to rehabilitate the island, to make the island sustainable.”
Based on the BAP framework, the long-term vision of the government when it comes to Boracay is to make it a world-class tourism destination with a climate-resilient economy.
The aim is to anchor Boracay’s growth on “the sustainable development of its innate natural resources.” This will also help achieve the long-term societal goal for Boracay, which is to protect its inhabitants from risks and make them resilient to unfortunate events.
In the medium-term framework, there are four “theme outcomes” needed to be met: enforcement of laws and regulations, pollution control and prevention, rehabilitation and recovery of ecosystems, and sustainability of island activities.
The last theme means that infrastructure must be reliable, adequate, affordable, resilient and compliant with global standards and social services, such as health, education and housing must be responsive to the needs of the community.
This also means that economic activities, particularly livelihood and tourism, must be inclusive, socially equitable and sustainable.
Cash aid
THE revelation of the Neda’s plan came as Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on Thursday said it no longer has any additional funding to extend the period of its cash aid for displaced workers in Boracay for now.
According to the report of the DOLE Region 6, around 26 percent or over P328 million of the P445 million funding for the Boracay Emergency Employment Program-Adjustment Measures Program (Beep Amp) has already been disbursed.
The amount was used to provide cash aid to 17,119 profiled workers, who were displaced with the three-month closure of Boracay.
The DOLE’s Bureau of Local Employment Director Domique R. Tutay said they still have no final number of workers, who were re-employed or started a new livelihood because of the intervention.
But based from their initial report, some of the beneficiaries were employed abroad.
“It was successful in terms of uplifting the lives of affected workers, since it allowed them the means to provide for their daily needs,” Tutay said.
The remaining P119,903,170.55 of the Beep AMP budget will be used to provide similar aid to 616 applicants.
Tutay said they are still evaluating the remaining 14,234 applications for their BEEP-AMP before requesting for additional funding for it.
The DOLE intensified its screening process for the BEEP AMP applicants after their numbers exceeded 17,735 profiled displaced workers in Boracay after it was closed to the public on April 26.
This led the agency to suspect some of the applicants are engaged in fraudulent activities.
Tutay said they may release the final tranche of the BEEP AMP by November.
Boracay was opened to the public on Friday after undergoing extensive environmental rehabilitation.
However, some of the establishments, which violated environmental regulations, were no longer allowed to reopen, leaving some workers permanently displaced even with the reopening of the island resort.
Tutay said they have yet to identify the total number of these jobless workers.