President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the once-idyllic white-sand resort closed to tourists for up to six months from April 26, after describing the country’s top tourist attraction as a “cesspool” tainted by raw sewage. / AFP / Noel Celis/
(Eagle News) — President Rodrigo Duterte has created a task force aimed at “revers(ing) the degradation of Boracay Island.”
In signing Executive Order No. 53 on May 8, Duterte noted that the issues surrounding Boracay, “a vital national asset and a source of national pride,” are “no longer a purely local matter but a national concern that needs concerted national and local cooperation and synchronization of plans and programs.”
He said that the inter-agency task force shall “formulate, implement and oversee policies, as well as strictly enforce national laws and local ordinances, to ensure the rehabilitation and ecological sustainability” of Boracay.
The task force shall be chaired by the secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
To act as vice chairs are the secretaries of the Department of the Interior and Local Government, and of the Department of Tourism.
The task force’s members are the secretary of the Department of Justice, the secretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways, the secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the secretary of the Department of Labor and Employment, the secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry, the chief operating officer of the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority, the chief of the Philippine National Police, the governor of the province of Aklan, and the mayor of the municipality of Malay.
According to the EO, the task force shall submit a monthly report on its implementation to the Office of the President through the Office of the Executive Secretary.
“Such report shall include the actions taken by the provincial government of Aklan and the municipality of Malay , which shall closely be monitored by the task force, and the progress and the accomplishments of the task force based on the timelines and milestones contained in the Boracay Action Plan, including a comparison from its pre-rehabilitation phase baseline data,” the EO said.
The order shall take effect immediately.
The government implemented a 6-month closure of Boracay, after Duterte called the island a “cesspool.”