BGY. SABANG, Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro — "Zurecht ein Platz fur einen unvergesslichen Tauchurlaub!" says a promotional statement posted on a website of a German-managed dive resort in this premier coastal barangay of Puerto Galera.
Translated by a Filipino staff, the text means that Sabang, located in the eastern side of one of the country’s top tourist destinations, is the best "place for an unforgettable diving vacation."
Sabang is ideal for swimming, snorkelling, and even scuba and skin diving, a sea sport which the village is famous for. It has 20 dive sites that could be reached by tourists within 10 minutes from his resort hotel.
While diving could be done day and night, Sabang "never sleeps at night time." A cluster of night spots abound in the area which makes it popular for evening socials.
The volume of tourists coming to Sabang from Metro Manila and elsewhere, through the Batangas International Port, is 1,500 to 2,000 passengers daily during peak season, from March to May. In White Beach, Bgy. San Isidro, the statistics is between 5,000 to 6,000 tourists daily during the same months.
Most of these tourists avail of the public sea transport system to and from Puerto Galera such as taxi ferries, outriggers, and ro-ros.
"Outriggers are the favorite and frequently used mode of sea transport in coming in and out of Puerto Galera, including Sabang and White Beach, which accounts for 98 percent," said Rocky D. Ilagan, owner of the Father and Son Shipping Lines, which operates a fleet of outriggers plying the Sabang-Batangas route.
Unlike the far-away Boracay and other places of interest in the country, Puerto Galera is the favorite hang-out of tourists, foreign and locals alike, because of its low-budget accommodations, affordability, and most of all, its accessibility.
However, resort operators like Ilagan, who also owns the Anegeline Beach Resort in the area, have expressed disappointment over a proposed municipal ordinance now pending before the Sangguniang Panlalawigan in Calapan City establishing a "one-entry, one-exit port" in Puerto Galera.
Crafted by the Puerto Galera Sangguniang Bayan, Municipal Ordinance No. 05-06 calls for the establishment of "onepoint of entry and exit for all vessels plying the Batangas-Puerto Galera route" purportedly to "check the entry of illegal drugs and to prevent terrorist attacks on any spot" of the municipality.
From the present six points of entry, Sabang, Muelle, Balatero, Minolo, White Beach, and Talipanan, the municipal ordinance will establish only one-entry-one exit port in Bgy. Balatero. The Balatero Port was donated by a private family to the Puerto Galera municipal government in 2002.
Former Puerto Galera Vice-Mayor Robinhood D. Ylagan explained that it is impractical to unify six points of entry into one main port in Balatero considering the fact that there are about 100 passenger vessels coming in and out of various coastal villages using the six entry points.
"And besides, it is not safe to both the vessels, mostly outriggers, and tourists to use Balatero Port for docking and undocking manuevers, because it can only accommodate two outriggers at a time," Ylagan said, explaining that the small port is located near an open sea that is dangerous to both the vessels and the passengers.
"I can assure you that all there will be, if the ordinance is enacted, is a 25 to 35 percent decline in the regular and returning visitations of tourists if they have to endure a two-hour bypass in a meaningless checkpoint," lamented Roger A. Bigler, an official of the Portofino Resort and a founding trustee of the Puerto Galera Business Development Association, based in sitio Small La Laguna here.
A petition of protest containing 3,000 signatures was submitted to the Oriental Mindoro provincial board, through Gov. Arnan C. Panaligan, to modify or veto the municipal ordinance "which at best can be called ‘obscene’ in its impact to the business community."
"It is a bad idea," Anthony Welsh, 43, of Bristol, England, said of Municipal Ordinance 05-06, explaining that if the present six points of entry in Puerto Galera is transferred to Balatero Port as the single and main port, the travel, through a tricycle to Sabang is "very dusty and expensive."
"Sabang is accesible from Batangas by pumpboat," according to Welsh, a former military engineer, and now a project manager of a German-Filipino bank based in the area. He is also a regular tourist of Sabang who pays a measly R150 for a short one-hour pumpboat ride whenever he visits the place every month.
[ Small La Laguna Wiki ]
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