Boracay folk face uncertain times

BLEAK FUTURE For Josephine Sastre, the six-month shutdown of Boracay Island means closing her souvenir shop and relying on her son, a driver, to support the family. Sonny Boy Jimenez (right) will stop paddle board lessons while tourists are away. —MICHAEL ANGELO DEJANDO

BORACAY ISLAND, Aklan — For the next six months, Josephine Sastre would have to rely on her son for support.

She is among the more than 30,000 workers in Boracay who have been displaced after the government shut down the world-renowned holiday island to any tourist-related activities to pave the way for its rehabilitation.

Sastre sold souvenir items from a booth at Station 2 from
6 p.m. to midnight. Her six-hour operation would earn her P800 to P1,500.

She was forced to stay in the family home in Barangay Yapak, one of three villages in Boracay, Malay town, since she could not find any job because she was suffering from various illnesses. The two other barangays are Yapak and Manoc-Manoc.

“I will just have to rely on the income of my son who is driving a motorcycle here in Malay. We’ll have to save up and cut down on expenses,” she said.

Sastre said she could not also grow vegetables in her village since the area where she used to plant had been converted into a golf course after its owner sold the land.

She grew up in Boracay and had witnessed how the island had slowly fallen victim to overcommercialization.

Paradise ruined

“It was really a paradise,” she said.

Sastre recalled that she and her friends would dip their feet in the clear waters, pick up and eat fallen coconuts on their way home from school, and squint their eyes upon seeing the blinding white sand.

But now, life had been transformed on the island.

“In the past, we survived because we got water from deep wells. Today, we have no money to pay for our water bills,” she said. “Before, we just gathered firewood. Now, I must have money to buy gas. Everything’s commercialized.”

“We don’t even have enough space to set up our clothesline. The houses are really standing very close to each other,” she said.

Survival

While she agrees with the temporary closure of Boracay, Sastre is worried how they will survive solely on the income of her son, whose wife is pregnant. She also needs to attend to her husband, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

“I’m in favor of closing Boracay because cleaning it up will benefit everyone. The problem is, we have no source of income; hence, we go hungry,” Sastre said.

“It may be OK for others who could catch and sell fish but not for someone like me whose husband is sick. It’s impractical for me to work as a laundrywoman because I cannot even wash my own clothes due to hip pain,” she added.

Sometimes, she would cry while praying at night because she did not know what to do.

Coping

Tour guide Jose Joy Florentino also lost his income of P500 to P1,500 daily that supported him, his wife and two children aged 2 and 4 months.

“Here in Boracay, it was easy to earn money. But there’s nothing we could do since the government decided to close down the island to rehabilitate it for the next generation,” said Florentino, 41, who also drove a motorcycle-for-hire on the side.

With the closure, he added, he might have to go back to his old job in a catering company in Manila.

To cope with the island’s closure, 43-year-old paddle board instructor Sonny Boy Jimenez planned to return to his hometown of Kalibo and catch crabs.

A father of three high school students, Jimenez previously worked as a coordinator of a hotel at Station 1 for 20 years.

After transferring his children to a school in Kalibo, he joined the paddle board business at Station 2 that earned himself about P3,500 a day during peak season.

Good for island

But Sastre, Florentino and Jimenez didn’t feel bad about the temporary closure since it would be good for the island.

They, however, hoped that the government would provide them assistance to help them survive.

“What I am asking the government is to help us because we will get hungry. We have no money to buy food. What will happen to us if we cannot pay our electricity and water bills for six months? It will be difficult to live if our power and water lines will be cut off. More so, my husband is ailing. What do you think will happen to us now because I still have a grandson to send to school?” Sastre said.

Florentino said he hoped that the government would distribute the calamity assistance to those affected by the closure.

“The assistance should not only be for me but for everyone, including those who lost their land and their home. They also don’t have a job and they have children. They have nothing,” he said.