Solon files resolution to probe Boracay closure, casino establishment

Bayan Muna Partylist Representative Carlos Zarate (CDN PHOTO/CHOY ROMANO)

A progressive lawmaker has filed a resolution which seeks to conduct an investigation into the closure of businesses in Boracay, and the looming construction of a $500-million mega casino-resort in the island amid the environmental and social woes hounding the prime tourist spot.

In House Resolution No. 1806 filed last April 3, Bayan Muna Partylist Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate said the lower Chamber, through committees on natural resources and ecology, “must step in to prevent any more damage to Boracay and to the people relying on the commerce of the island.”

The lawmaker found it “ironic and intriguing” that despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to shut down Boracay for six months, the government allowed the entry and construction of a mega casino-resort there.

Earlier, the government-owned Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) 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.

Zarate said allowing the entry of this mega casino-resort is “projected to add more burden to the island and its people and environment.”

“The carrying capacity, or the population that an area can support without undergoing deterioration, of Boracay was estimated to have already been exceeded in the year 2010 or 2011, according to the Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau (ERDB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR),” he wrote in the resolution.

While the rehabilitation of Boracay’s waters and forests, waste management, and the setting up of environmental safeguards to prevent the deterioration of the island is long overdue, Zarate said this move may ease local small businesses and jobs of tens of thousands of people to give way to the big-ticket project.

He said the government “must stand and support local small businesses over foreign-owned large businesses.”

Last Monday, Duterte declared that no casino would be built in the Island. He also declared the 1,032-hectare resort island an agrarian reform area, saying under the law, the country’s premier tourist destination is an agricultural and forest area. /jpv

READ: ‘No to casino, yes to land reform on Boracay Island’