The Perils of Progress
When Boracay used to be touted as the next Phuket, it was a compliment, but for the Philippine island today, the comparison may not be so flattering





July 2010

ON MY LAST DAY IN BORACAY, while nursing one of the many hangovers I’d had during my week-long visit, I took an afternoon stroll down famous White Beach, in view of the Starbucks, the faux-Mexican restaurant, the Yellow Cab pizza, and several scuba diving outfits and beach bars. I was feeling sentimental, as one does when a vacation winds down.

It had been a good week of sleeping in, snorkelling, Frisbee on the beach, spectacular sunsets, and long dinners followed by evening cocktails under the stars on beach-side beanbag chairs, where my friends and I would remark there absolutely could not be a more exquisite place on earth. Then, we’d head to Summer Place bar to get down to the Black Eyed Peas’ ‘I Got a Feeling’ before calling it a night somewhere around three am.

It was, in a word, awesome. And yet because of all those things I was also feeling a bit guilty. I’d come to Boracay not just to relax and indulge—which I did—but to report on some troubling issues facing the island. I’d told myself my story would balance out my visit, but as I walked down a beach that wasn’t as white as it used to be, kicking an unusual amount of dead coral, I couldn’t help but think that I was guilty of the very crimes I’d come to uncover. I was part of the end of Boracay.

The island, and its raison d’être, White Beach, a 4.5-kilometre stretch of paradise an hour south of Manila by plane, has long been one of Asia’s worst kept secrets. Conde Nast Traveler has called White Beach one of the best in the world, and The New York Times listed the island on which it lies one of the 44 places to see in 2009. In an unfortunate bit of foreshadowing, the paper anointed Boracay ‘the new Phuket.’

I’d been to Boracay before and I fell in love. It was December of 2005 and I’d been living in Japan, sleeping at a friend’s place and taking trips around Southeast Asia to write the odd magazine article. My parents were coming for a visit and we decided to head to the Philippines. Boracay seemed to have it all. The beach was spectacular, the water clean and clear. Accommodations were basic but classy, with abundant restaurants and nightlife. Big resorts were few and far between, there were no chain restaurants (unless you count The Hobbit House, which is staffed by ‘The Smallest Waiters in the World’ and has a branch in Manila), and there was none of the sleaze you find at other beach destinations in Asia, like Phuket.

During the day, Korean dive groups scurried out into the turquoise shallows to explore the reef life. There were pickup volleyball games along the beach, and plenty of room to find a little section of shade and commandeer a hotel sun-chair without worry. In the evenings, my family and I walked the sandy strip and dined on seafood and pizza and steaks. Later, we’d grab a table at a beach bar and sip San Miguel Lights while listening to a long-haired Filipino strum an acoustic guitar and sing accented versions of Jack Johnson and Bob Dylan tunes.

Of course, even then it wasn’t exactly a remote island retreat. It was touristy, sure, but it was also charming and somehow quaint. It had everything you wanted and little of what you didn’t. There were few pot-bellied, middle-aged men with young local women on their arms; there were no dreadlocked backpackers ‘finding themselves’ at the bottom of whiskey buckets during all night raves. My parents loved it, my brother loved it, we all loved it—it was paradise.

Four years minus a month later, I was back, this time I was living in Beijing. I’d come with a group of American friends to play in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Manila. To make the trip down worth it, we tagged on an extra week in Boracay and, in an attempt to make a little cash from the trip, I started looking into story ideas to write about. A friend had clued me in to some of the environmental concerns on Boracay, and during my research I found that since my last visit things on the island I’d loved so much had taken a turn for the worse.

Years of frenzied tourism growth had transformed Boracay from an island of family-run hotels and cozy beach bars to a place where luxury resorts were as ubiquitous as bikinis. The guitar players were now joined by several nightclubs with thumping techno and strobe lights that crisscrossed the starry sky. Of course, that in itself doesn’t spell doom, but the largely unchecked development had put Boracay’s spectacular natural environment in jeopardy. Inadequate waste treatment had in recent years contaminated crowded waters with sewage, which had contributed to outbreaks of ear infections, skin infections, stomach ailments, and more. The sewage, combined with illegal fishing, had decimated reef life. Environmental problems were only the beginning. The scramble for some of the country’s most valuable real estate had resulted in sporadic turf wars. In one case in 2008, a family-owned warren of shops and restaurants was burnt to the ground; police found Molotov cocktails and other ‘unknown flammable substances’ in the ruin.

Before I left Beijing I emailed Lee-Ann Ford, president and founder of Linking Individuals for Nature Conservation (LINC), an NGO that conducted a project in Boracay from 2006 to 2009. “The overdevelopment is only half of the story,” she wrote. “The land grab, illegal development of protected forests, dead and dying reefs, the impact loss of fisheries is having on the villages and a dangerously contaminated bay is some of what I have dealt with on Boracay. We were there in July 2008 and an actual ‘hunk’ of the island fell off into the sea! The scientist thought it was from a constant vibration from the bars and development.”(Ford’s project “ended in disaster when a local group realised that there was money to be made in green efforts and decided to take the balance of our project funds for their own uses,” she wrote in an email.)

From the top of Mt Lugo, the island’s highest point, Boracay’s development woes are spelled out. To the south is Bulabog Beach on the backside of the island, a short walk across a sand spit from White Beach. Bulabog is a kite surfer’s paradise—it hosts the annual Fun Board Cup—and most of the resorts there cater to kite surfers. From above dozens of kite surfers can be seen zipping along the choppy, navy waters, narrowly missing one another. Bulabog is also where Boracay pumps its sewage and, on bad days, the smell can be overpowering. “Some days,” a local told me, “you’re literally surfing on crap.”

To the north of Mt Lugo is an 18-hole golf course that takes up ten percent of the island’s landmass and requires more water than it can afford to spare. A series of recently built condos is set on an adjacent hill. Just beyond and out of view is the new 219-room, 61,000 square foot Shangrila hotel and spa located in a private bay. During the day I visited Mt Lugo, the faint rustling of palm trees was interrupted by a buzzsaw from a construction crew putting together a four-storey condo the next hilltop over.

I stood atop Mt Lugo with Azi, a Boracay resident for ten years whom I’d met at the Frisbee tournament in Manila. Azi, 30, had agreed to show me around the island. “Ten years ago there were no big buildings. Infrastructure has tripled,” she told me between buzzsaw squeals. The Department of Energy and Natural Resources “proclaimed this forest land. Nothing should be built, but look at this”— she pointed to the construction below—“the municipal government just ignores the laws.”

Earlier in the day, I’d gone to visit Dennis Smith, the owner of Isla Gecko hotel. Smith is a middle-aged Kiwi who has lived in Boracay full-time for five years, running Isla Gecko with his Filipina wife, and he’s active in local affairs. He has long, sinewy limbs, a welcoming smile, and the leathery skin of someone who has spent way too much time under the sun. As we sat in the shade of the hotel’s courtyard, Smith told me Boracay’s current troubles are exemplified by what is by far the island’s biggest draw: White Beach. High tide is significantly higher than it was when Smith moved to Boracay and the beach is blanketed in dead coral. Even its name, he said, has become a slight misnomer. “They don’t call it White Beach anymore,” he said. “The locals call it Gray Beach. It’s a piece of shit. It’s all pollution. An ecological disaster.”

Worse even are the development problems. Because only 10 percent of the land is actually titled, most properties are essentially leased by paying real estate taxes. People with money tend to bully locals off their land. “They’ll say, ‘We’ve lived here for thirty years.’ The rich person says, ‘Prove it.’ They can’t,” Smith says. In other instances, locals will sell the same property to multiple developers. The resulting confusion has sparked outbreaks of violence. Smith told me that there had been three shootings in the last 12 months. “You’ve got be careful buying land in the Philippines in general. In Boracay, the land is just so valuable.”

In light of these problems, the sewage issue might seem like little more than a cruel joke. It’s anything but. In a 2007 report, Dr Thomas Goreau, head of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, warned that “degradation of water quality, caused by sewage from uncontrolled development, is taking a heavy toll on the health of Boracay’s coral reefs, fisheries, residents and tourists.” He stressed that urgent action was needed before the situation worsened. “Denial or concealment of the problems will only delay, or even worse, completely prevent action that could dramatically improve the quality of life for everyone on the island,” Dr Goreau wrote.

After hiking to the top of Mt Lugo, Azi and I walked down to Bulabog beach, where I met Glen Parsons, a Briton who runs Ocean Republic, a kite surfing shop. Parsons first visited Boracay in 2003 and fell in love with kite surfing. He spends most of the year travelling for his job in fibre-optic communications, and calls the island home for about four months a year. “The biggest concern for people living here and who care about the island is not that it’s getting busier. It’s that they seem to be building on every possible square inch,” he told me as we sat facing the waters of Bulabog Bay. “This hill,” he says, pointing to a cliffside covered in white villas, “only had one hotel when I moved here six years ago. Now they’re hanging off the cliffs… The beauty of this island has been sacrificed for profit.”

So why stay?

“Because I haven’t found anything better.” Parsons said Boracay is relatively cheap, still has a good vibe, and the kite surfing is great. “There’s no stop like this in Asia.”

Parsons told me recent attempts to update the sewage system have paid off somewhat, and that the situation seems to be improving. In years past, the water from the sewage system would rise to the top, creating a glossy surface. When we spoke in late 2009, Parsons said the smell wasn’t as bad as the previous year and that the water was relatively clean. “It seems to be moving in the right direction. Some people say they’ve reduced the pollution by 50 percent.” He paused before adding, “I’m not saying the water’s clean.”

Regardless of improvements, the damage has been done. Inadequate waste treatment has largely killed off Boracay’s once abundant reef life. Soap from the treated water kills it directly, or human waste over-fertilises it until the reef chokes on its own growth. I was referred to the owner of a local snorkelling outfit, a beefy European, and his Filipino business partner, a Boracay native. We met over a breakfast of eggs and coffee at a beachside café. Both requested anonymity for fear of reprisals—the last time they spoke out about Boracay’s environmental troubles their shop sign was vandalised by local officials. They told me that 90 percent of Boracay’s reefs have died in a last decade, and worried that they’d soon have to consider closing up shop. “It’s very bad,” the European said. “In a few years, simple, it will all be gone.”

At the root of Boracay’s woes is, of course, money. Every year, about 500,000 people visit Boracay, generating over 275 million dollars in tourist receipts, a big number in a country where roughly 30 percent of people live below the poverty line. One fifth of the Philippines’ tourist traffic passes through the island. Even as things get busier and development continues, there’s no denying Boracay’s appeal. Even Manny ‘Pacman the Destroyer’ Pacquiao, the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world and the Philippines’ golden son, has a home here. There is a lot of cash to be made in Boracay, and everyone knows it.

In a bid to slow development and the resulting property disputes, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s government in 2006 reserved 40 percent of the island as agricultural and forest land—a ridiculous claim on an island that hadn’t been ‘agricultural and forest land’ for generations. In 2008, the Supreme Court upheld the edict and dismissed private claims to secure legal title over property featuring luxury developments. Long-term islanders feared that the government was trying to confiscate ancestral property, while resort owners worried that the notoriously corrupt government was trying to lay claim to already developed land. Many also fear that once an ongoing land title assessment is completed, they will be forced to bid for land where they’ve made multi-million dollar investments.

The government’s decision “smacks of injustice, insensitivity, and downright cruelty to the people of Boracay,” read an editorial in The Philippine Star. “By way of the Supreme Court decision, the national government has established its legal authority and ownership of Boracay, but in relation to history, culture and actual development of the island, the national government has now become the biggest squatter and the biggest land grabber in modern Philippine history.”

The government also issued a year-long moratorium on construction and a number of environmental ordinances. The moves have largely been ignored: When I visited, dozens of construction projects broke the calm of the palm-lined beach and, according to an assessment by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, many of the new developments have ignored environmental ordinances and building laws, resulting in flooding and beach erosion.

The government has assured landowners their investments are safe, and Virgie Sarabia, executive director of the Boracay Foundation Inc, a group of resort stakeholders that liaises with the government, is confident the government will stick to its word. “Nobody’s being kicked off their land,” she said.

I met Sarabia in her office on a road behind D’Mall, an outdoor shopping mall built sometime last decade, which, in hindsight, might have been the symbolic beginning of the end of Boracay. A round woman with friendly eyes and active hands, Sarabia wore a navy golf shirt that read ‘Boracay’s Reef Monitoring Team.’ She said the sewage issue is being addressed by both the government and private interests, and that the signs of improvement are clear. As for the attempt to survey land titles, which has caused so much animosity and concern on the island, Sarabia says the government is simply doing what has to be done. “People are worried because they thought this was a move of the government to take over the land. It’s not.” She acknowledged that some people may have to bid on land they’ve lived on for generations, but that the price will be fair.

Truth be told, I was anxious to get out of my meeting with Sarabia. It was late in the afternoon and I wanted to catch one last sunset, maybe squeeze in another game of beach Frisbee before meeting my friends for a last meal, before another night out at Summer Place bar. I thanked her for the interview, excused myself, and hurried back to White Beach. That night, as we sipped San Miguel Lights at a beach bar whose name I forget, my friends asked me how the reporting went. We all agreed that it was a shame what had happened to Boracay, and we felt lucky we’d made it there before things got worse. We shook our heads, clucked our tongues, and fell silent as we contemplated the end of Boracay.

Only we weren’t really contemplating the end of Boracay, were we? We were having too much fun, and that’s the problem with places like Boracay: It’s a piece of paradise and we as humans want to enjoy it. We feel we have the right. We talk about responsible tourism between tequila shots and, in the end, the vast majority of visitors to places like Boracay don’t give it another thought. We’re simply too distracted to realise what’s happening around us—or to care. There’s a thin line between enjoying paradise and destroying it, and with every visitor –with every broken bottle on the beach, every nightclub strobe light, every piece of dead coral and log of floating shit in Bulabog bay—that line grows thinner and thinner until, one day, it washes away entirely into an ever-growing high tide.