RESIDENTS, hotels, restaurants and other establishments on Boracay Island will turn off their lights Saturday evening, March 17, and form a chain of lights along the beach to show the government how the resort island would look if closed.
Members of Boracay United movement, whose aim is to clean up and save the central Philippine island instead of shutting it down, will be raising into the air the lights from their candles, mobile phones or flashlights for 8 minutes, from 8:08 p.m. to 8.16 p.m. Saturday.
“Each light represents an individual person affected by the closure,” the group said in its Facebook post.
Boracay United is a newly formed movement composed of Boracay Foundation Inc., Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI)-Boracay, Boracay Business Administration of Scuba Shops and the island community.
“It’s an appeal to the President (for him) to look at the lives that will be affected (by a complete shutdown),” PCCI-Boracay president Ma. Elena Tosco Brugger told VoxPop Philippines.
In a statement,PCCI warned that shutting down the island for one year will adversely affect the country's economy.
Citing Department of Tourism (DOT) data, the biggest business organization in the country said around P56 billion in tourism receipts and over 17,000 jobs will be lost in case of a shutdown.
PCCI noted that Boracay contributes about 20 percent of the total income generated by the tourism industry as of 2017.
DOT reported that Boracay's tourism industry has created 17,737 direct jobs, or about 66 percent of the total employment in Western Visayas region. This means that two out of three jobs in the region are on the Island.
Over two million local and international tourists visited Boracay last year.
Samie Lim, PCCI director for tourism, suggested that instead of a complete shutdown of the island, government should "close one station at a time" for rehabilitation.
"Phasing is important so we are able to protect the interest of all parties concerned, especially the local residents whose income are dependent on Boracay's economic activity," the chamber said.
The inter-agency task force formed to rehabilitate the island has recommended the one-year shutdown.
The task force, led by the secretaries of the Environment, Tourism and Local Government departments, was given by President Rodrigo Duterte six months to come up with recommendations on how to save Boracay.
The President first warned on February 9 that he will shut down the island, which he described as a cesspool because of its waste management and sewage problems. (Marites Villamor-Ilano/VoxPop Philippines)