Finally... blog...My short visit home wasn’t as hectic as I expected. I remember sleeping one whole afternoon, riding around town a bit to say hello to old friends, and going Boracay.
The island always has something new, and each visit gives me a reason or two to be both sad and happy.
The not-so-happy things about Bora are mostly found behind the beach front.
Politics has dipped its dirty hands in the island’s lucrative tourism business.
The people’s associations and cooperatives, which have worked for so long and so hard to establish the island’s transport system, are facing competition from the provincial government. The sad part is that there's nothing fair and legal with the provincial government’s encroachment of the island’s transport system – no permits, no franchise, no warning. If the provincial government doesn’t desist, people are bound to get hurt.
The indigenous people are slowly losing their land to big corporations and politicians.
Take a motorbike tour at the island’s interior – if you find a piece of vacant land that has no “Private Property” or “In this site will rise so-and-so hotel” hanged at the barbed wire fence, you can bet that it’s already reserved for a big politician or a crony of whoever's in power.
Finally, the island is an ecological time-bomb.
Should you get to visit Bora, take a trip to the highest point at Mt. Luho. For a donation of P50 pesos, you get a full view of the island from end to end (and get your hair and scalp picked by their resident monkeys, if you like).
So if you’re wondering where all the island's waste and garbage go, or how small the patch of land is left for the indigenous tribes, or how big the upcoming hotels and golf courses will be, this place will give you an idea.
The happy things?The sun, the sea, the beautiful people, and the beautiful memories.
Yun lang. Mababaw ako eh.
1 comment:
It's sad to hear that that's whats happening to Bora. =/ I haven't even been there yet. XP
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