The few past months have been crucial and new especially for vacationers in the Visayas region. Boracay, the worldly known island in Aklan, has been put up for renovation to improve its physicality. More so, they imposed cleanliness all throughout the island and an island-wide cleansing was done. The Department of Environment an Natural Resources (DENR), started to issue environmental compliance certificates (ECCs) to businesses in Boracay.
When will Boracay be open?
As per the Department, they will be following the same schedule; Boracay will still be open to the public on the 26th of October of this year. The rehabilitation, however, will then continue next year. I’m sure that you have seen the recent photos of Boracay being clean and free-from dirt.
Roy Cimatu, the Philippine Secretary of the DENR, said that the rehabilitation process is yet to be finished. He says that although we are seeing photos that make Boracay look like a new island, the island is still under the process of being a perfection.
Yung rehabilitation, marami kasing stages yun. Hindi pa talaga completely matapos. Tuloy-tuloy pa yan after the opening. Sa 2019 pa matatapos yan eh,” Cimatu said.
With ECCS, they can be sure that the closing will not happen ever again since there will be regulations and discipline on how the island should be used.
To refresh your memory, Boracay has been closed since April 26th of this year because of the President’s orders of it being cleansed. According to our dear President, the island needed to be rehabilitated and cleansed because it was considered as a forest and an agricultural land. By that, he again questioned the possibility of multi-billion peso businesses and establishments existing there.
Since the island was plagued by environmental pollution caused by improper discipline of people and sewage mismanagement, the President emphasized the need to have the island cleaned up.
[D]on’t pester me, because I am just cleaning it. But after that, I will return it to you. No one wants to take the island from you,” said President Rodrigo Duterte, addressing Boracay residents and business owners.
