Gov’t brings Muslim residents of Boracay back to Mindanao

Resorts, hotels and restaurants on Boracay Island have set up health and safety guidelines as they prepare to welcome more visitors to jump-start the local economy. —JACK JARILLA

ILOILO CITY –– For the past 22 years, Mahid Bani has been selling pearl jewelry to tourists and balikbayans (returning Filipino expatriates) visiting Boracay Island.

Selling pearl jewelry, mostly along the beach, has been difficult but Bani said this has sustained his family on the island.

Since February when the COVID-19 pandemic started, tourists, however, have stopped going to the island due to travel restrictions and community quarantine measures.

With tourists gone, vendors like Bani and those relying on tourists for their livelihood were left dependent on food assistance from the government and the community.

Some residents have sought help in buying diapers and infant milk on online community pages.

“Most of these days, I don’t have a single peso. I ask for help from friends, relatives, and neighbors. You have to be thick-faced to survive,” Bani, 48, told the INQUIRER in a telephone interview.

The pandemic has hit hard Boracay Island’s Muslim community forcing more than 80 percent of community members to leave the island and return to their home provinces in Mindanao due to lack of livelihood.

On October 5, 110 Muslim residents were repatriated by the Office of Civil Defense in Western Visayas from the island to Iloilo City en route to Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, and Misamis Oriental.

Another batch of around 100 residents will also be repatriated after two weeks.

The residents are mostly vendors of souvenir items, jewelry, and clothing for tourists on Boracay Island.

Tourists from Western Visayas were allowed in Boracay starting on June 16 and from other areas on October 1 but tourist arrivals are still negligible compared to the 3,000 to 5,000 tourists who visited the island daily before the pandemic.

“We have been severely affected (by the pandemic) and we are dependent on government aid and support from other Muslim communities,” Muamar “Faisal” Arumpac, who has been president of the Boracay Muslim Association for 25 years, told the INQUIRER.

From around 3,000 members before the pandemic, the Muslim community at Sitio Ambulong in Barangay Manoc-Manoc has been reduced to about 500 residents. Only 10 percent of school-age children are left on the island.

“This is the worst crisis we have faced. We lost all that we have invested for many years,” Arumpac said.

He said the residents started leaving after the closure of the island to tourists, with many leaving only a family member to watch over stores or stalls.

Those who cannot afford to pay for their trip were left behind, and are the ones being repatriated by the government.

“Some will come back if the situation improves when more tourists go here, but many said they will not return,” Arumpac said.

Around 80 percent of those who left the island returned to Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte.

He said the community members were saddened that many of their relatives and neighbors left. Those left behind have been helping each other to cope with the pandemic with those better off helping those who need support.

Muslim associations in other areas also sent assistance, including from Iloilo, which donated 200 sacks of rice.

Arumpac said non-Muslim residents are also struggling to cope with the pandemic.

“Some of our Christian brothers and sisters are worse off because they do not have assistance other than those provided by government agencies and the local government. That is why we also help them if we can,” he said.

Bani said he had received P6,000 under the government’s Social Amelioration Program and rice assistance from the village and municipal government.

He said these were not enough as he was supporting his wife and four children, including one who would turn 2 years old in November.

But Bani is not yet giving up and has no plans to go back to Manila, where he was born, or to relatives in Mindanao.

“I am preparing in case more tourists will come. I hope someone can loan me capital so I can start again when this is over,” he said./###

ZB