The government plans to control the number of tourists who will visit Boracay but the inter-agency task force supervising the ongoing rehabilitation of the island has yet to determine the number of people that would be allowed once it reopens in October.
This was learned Monday during the joint hearing of the Senate Committees on tourism and local government after an official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) told senators that the research that will determine the carrying capacity of the island has yet to be completed.
Bighani Manipula of the DENR’s Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau said the research, to be completed in August, will determine the capacity of the island.
But based on the 2008 study, the carrying capacity of the island is about 35,000, although normally, the population at any given time reaches 60,000 and 110,000 during peak season.
Senate Tourism Committee chairperson Senator Nancy Binay said based on initial figures, Boracay has exceeded its capacity.
She said efforts to rehabilitate the island would be put to waste if the government would allow overpopulation in the island.
“That would be discussed by the task force once the study on the carrying capacity of the island is available,” said Interior Undersecretary Epimaco Densing. But Binay said the government would be sending out false hopes by announcing that Boracay would be open in October when in reality the island cannot accommodate more visitors.
“You are saying by October 29 Boracay will be operational but apparently because of the carrying capacity it is possible that Boracay is not yet ready to accommodate tourists,” Binay told Densing.
Densing said once data becomes available, the task force will come up with a mechanism to manage the number of tourists allowed to visit the island to prevent overcrowding.
The committee is set to conduct another hearing before the reopening of Boracay to check on the progress of its
rehabilitation.
Senator Nancy Binay speaks at the Senate hearing on the rehabilitation of Boracay Island.
