Boracay Island prepares to face bandits, terror groups

ISLAND SAFETY Tourists watch members of a multiagency task force hold a security exercise simulating an attack by kidnappers on Boracay Island, as local officials ensure the safety of visitors and residents of one of the country’s top attractions. —PHOTO COURTESY OF BORACAY TOURIST ASSISTANCE CENTER

ILOILO CITY—Gunfire and explosions erupted along the white beach and waters of Boracay Island on Saturday as security personnel “clashed with “kidnappers.”

But tourists were not scared and instead were drawn to the armed men along the beach near Boat Station 1, at the northern end of the island.

Security personnel were simulating an attack on the island as part of enhancing security and safety measures on the world-famous island-resort in Malay town in Aklan province.

About 100 personnel were involved in the 25-minute exercise to demonstrate and assess the capability of the newly launched Joint Task Force Boracay, said Rowen Aguirre, the task force’s executive director.

The multiagency task force is composed of Boracay Tourist Assistance Center, the island’s police force; the Philippine National Police Maritime Group; the Philippine Coast Guard; the Philippine Army; the Philippine Navy; the Bureau of Fire Protection; and Malay municipal disaster risk reduction and management office.

Aguirre said the creation and activation of the task force was set even before last month’s incursion of Abu Sayyaf bandits to Bohol province, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Visayas.

But he said the Bohol crisis emphasized the need for security preparedness even if the 1,032-hectare Boracay Island was much farther from the base of the bandits in Basilan and Sulu provinces.

The island is off the northwestern tip of Panay Island in Western Visayas.

“It would be difficult for them [to reach Boracay] but not impossible,” Aguirre told the Inquirer.

Saturday’s exercise simulated the arrival of a group of armed men planning to kidnap tourists on Boracay Island.

In the exercise, several “kidnappers” were intercepted at a checkpoint, with some killed and others arrested after a firefight using blanks.
Using information taken from those arrested, government troops located improvised explosive devices planted by the kidnappers. These were then disabled through controlled explosions.

Another phase of the exercise involved intercepting another group of kidnappers who commandeered a boat and attempted to flee from the island.

Philippine Navy units also intercepted and clashed with another group of armed men that was about to join those already on the island.

Vice Adm. Ronald Joseph Mercado, Navy flag officer in command; Maj. Gen. Jon Aying, commander of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division; and Chief Supt. Cesar Hawthorne Binag, Western Visayas police director, witnessed the exercise.