Boracay Island, Malay, Aklan - Intrepid European travelers in the mid-1970s discovered this dumbshell-shaped island paradise with its renowned four-kilometer long sugary white beach. It became commercialized ten years later to become a must destination for Westerners and North Asians traveling to Southeast Asia. Last year, 229,844 tourist arrivals were recorded, and from January to April this year, 116,000 have already visited Boracay.
The top ten nationalities who went to Boracay last year were: Filipino (157,100); Korean (31,515); American (7,105); German (5,600); Japanese (4,850); British (4,467); French (2,151); Australian (2,080); Canadian (1,942), and Swiss (1,436). Last year’s total number of arrivals of 229,844 was an increase of 26 percent over 1999’s 181,813 arrivals.
Knowing that tourism is their main source of livelihood, local officials and resort owners have set into motion and installed the necessary safeguards as early as 1999 to secure the hordes of warm bodies that come ashore to their fine ivory beach every year during the peak season from October to late May.
Tagged by foreign travel magazines and travelers as the “best beach in the world’’ and a “tropical island paradise,’’ Boracay is still teeming with domestic and foreign tourists a week after the kidnapping incident in Palawan.
Assuring the islanders’ and tourists safety are about a hundred members of a composite team from the Philippine National Police (PCP), PNP Maritime Police, Philippine Army (PA), Philippine Coast Guard, and the Philippine Navy which had deployed four naval patrol boats to secure the island of Boracay from water-borne terrorists.
“Since Boracay is surrounded by large Christian communities in the adjoining islands of Caluya, Semirara, Sibulo and Sibatu, all belonging to the province of Antique in the west, and Romblon in the north and the whole of Panay in the east, it is very hard for Abu Sayyaf bandits to penetrate and escape from this place,’’ assured Malay Mayor-elect Ceciron S. Cawaling, whose town has jurisdiction over the island of Boracay. With a population of 12,000 living in its three barangays, Boracay has 300 business establishments (of which 229 are resort hotels), including 129 bars and restaurants.
A day after the Dos Palmas Arriciffe Island Resort abduction of 20 tourists in Palawan, newly-elected Mayor Cawaling, who owns the beachfront Galaxy Resort hotel in Boracay, together with his newly-elected Vice Mayor Frolibar Bautista, called a meeting with the island’s three barangay chairmen, Aklan Gov. Joven Miraflores, PTA General Manger Nixon Kua, Congressman-elect Billie Caliso of the lone district of Aklan, and the heads of the local PNP, Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and other municipal officials and resort owners, to discuss the island’s security a day after the kidnapping.
Aside from the military and police, owners of Boracay’s 21 dive shops had also volunteered to use their swift motorized diveboats, speedboats and jetskis in patrolling the surrounding waters of the island.
“Unknown to visitors here, (special units) of the Army, the Coast Guard and the Navy are now deployed in strategic areas of Boracay,’’ said Cawaling. “It’s only the (light-armed) police that are visible here because soldiers in camouflage uniform lugging M-16s might scare off tourists.
Even the 60-member Maranao traders group in Boracay is helping their Christian brothers in monitoring visitors coming in from the port of Caticlan, the gateway to the island in Malay town in the mainland.
“If something happens here like that (kidnapping) in Palawan, our business will also be adversely affected once tourists don’t come here anymore,’’ said Faisal Arumpak, president of Boracay Muslim Association.
Before beefing up the island’s security, Boracay has already in place a 911 hotline since 1999, according to Cawaling, who served as Malay’s vice mayor for two consecutive terms up to his candidacy as mayor of Aklan’s world-renowned resort town.
“Boracay has been secured for the safety of tourists even before the Sipadan Island kidnapping incident in Sabah occurred in April of last year,’’ declared Cawaling, who is the chief of staff of the Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary (PCGA) group in Boracay. “Only this time they have been beefed up (to make our defenses impregnable).’’
Presently, Boracay has some of the best beach resort hotels in the country like the popular Boracay Terraces Resort hotel, one of the pioneers in Brgy. Balabag in the northwestern part of Long Beach (as the four-kilometer white beach is called) where the other high-end resorts like Friday’s and Pearl of the Pacific are located.
Late last month, more than 400 hoteliers and resort owners (240 of whom are golfers) sailed to Boracay to participate in the successful two-day “1st Cebu-Pacific-7107) Islands Travelers Club Golf Tournament’’ held at its 18-hole Fairways & Bluewater golf course.
“This is the only place in the world where I can watch the sunset (on the west) and the moonrise (in the east) simultaneously from a vantage point in the island during a particular time of the year,’’ said Rey dela Rosa, son of the late Ambassador and Actor Rogelio dela Rosa and one-time Boracay bistro owner who was recently appointed by Mayor-elect Cawaling as consultant of the Boracay Tourism Council. “This makes Boracay truly an island paradise unmatched in the world in terms of natural (and meteorological) beauty.’’
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