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Begin with the sand, where resides the germ of many a Gaugainesque fantasy. Inevitably: astonishing coolness, powdery smoothness and always, inf initenessimal size. Aye, Lilliput! Boracay, like its sand particles, is tiny. It occured to me that the superlatives used by admirers may be slightly off the mark. For while everything about Boracay is ocassion for excessive metaphors of beauty (paradise! sanctuary! ultimate!),
Boracay itself seems to insist on the discreetly compelling, as opposed to the grand; on the fragile and dimunitive and the only partially visible, as opposed to the magni­loquent. It shares more of the nature of secrets than that of spectacle.
The abbreviated height of the wave-rutted "cliffs," the swaying slightness about the dimensions of the trunks and leaves of casuarinas, ficus and pandanus in sparse stands (not quite a forest), the fine-boned proportions of its terrain; everywhere is configured a profound smaRness, as though the island were meant to be conceived as a miniature painting, an iridescent postage stamp on a love letter, or a precious reliquary quietly on the breast. Nothing here assumes monolithic proportions; not even the coral reef, which in Boracay's version, is a darting, flitting somehow evanescent set of images, the very opposite of still life.
"Thirteen thousand people a day," says Ramona Ty, undersecretary of the Department of Tourism and the woman responsible for the Master Development Plan for Boracay. This number is the maximum holding capacity of the grain-sized Boracay, more coralline atoll than de facto island, hence vulnerable to any manner of stress. Beyond this number, the weight of human demands will throw off-kilter the complex-ly-nuanced choreography of coral growth, wave, wind, seagrass, mangrove, bird, small mammal, mollusc, fish, soil, and certainly, that unbelie­vable white sand. That balance is no longer just esoteric coinage of scientists. Indeed the visitor to Boracay is immediately initiated by the sands into worlds of meaning in the words "delicate,"
An aerial view of Boracay's sepctacular four-kilometer stretch of white sand beach, above.
"balance," "fragile." And talk, in Boracay, intermittently leads to environmental concerns.
In Boracay, such obscure animals as polyps have a presence,howevermetaphorically. Notafew entrepreneurs and visitors are volubly conversant about these coral-building creatures in the aquamarine womb: when the polyps are smothered by siltation or sedimentation, or when their access to adequate sunlight is reduced by deforestation and land clearing, they cease to rebuild the island. It is the calcium they secrete, hardened in the saline depths and then crushed by wave action, whirled around by the seasonal winds with the deeply Philippine names amihan and habagat—which metamorphoses as that sand to which thousands travel thousands of miles to lie upon.
The ecological bottom line is well-known: without a healthy marine environment governed by evolution-calibrated cycles of life and death, and without the protective dune vegetation, there is no fabled Boracay beach. Apropos Boracay's poetics of the diminutive, the minutest shifts in wind pattern, for instance, or in the nutrient content of the seas, can literally make the gem of an island vanish from its turquoise setting.
The local debates about the prospects of tourism keep that bottom line in sight, and likely heightens the sense of Boracay's rarefied, phantasmic preciousness. (This is not the Himalayas, which seems to essay forever!) To the question of how Boracay can be preserved through a new century of incalculable tourist appetites. Choosing the options for long term answers (high-tech or low-tech structures? the horror of concrete or the interminably replaceable thatch and bamboo? garbage incinerators or off-island dump sites?) requires, well, looking at the sand
Blond, beautiful, beach-bound— this tourist has all the necessary "equipment" to enjoy Boracay Island: mat, towel and a good book.
Straw hats, purses and baskets make the perfect souvenirs. Three
tradespeople take a break after a long day working the beach, left.
transportation routes and a wet market.
Like all plans, it distills the substance of dreams, and cultivates a faith in the possibility of a lasting magic. No one who has been to Boracay comfortably denigrates dreams, faith, possibility and magic—no matter how disdainfully they, or I, might view these words elsewhere— because the island collapses disdain. Boracay erodes cynicism. However keen one might be to incipient social problems (Will the barely-modulated eroticism of visitor culture pollute the native sand? Will the Ati learn an entrepreneurship of their own culture, as their ancestors learned to be fisherfolk? Will the foreigner's quest for exoticism find a dignified meeting ground with the local's desire for modernity?)—there are myriad manifestations of pure joy.
On the boat towards the island, I took to chatting with a Filipino couple, on a second-time around. It happens that they are Jehovah's Witnesses, accompanying a European co-member of their faith on a vacation. There are, they say, a few other members of their church who own enterprises on Boracay. Walking the sand, there was this spirited conversation with a young Filipino systems analyst, not yet in his thirties, taking a solo break from a job which keeps him in the United States East Coast part of the year and in England for the rest. He regards his homeland with a mixture of pride, longing and sharp critical j udgement; but Boracay, with child-like glee. The gaggle of Korean yuppies on the same boat were taking care of an elderly couple from their country. And the Boracaynon boatmen were respectful, professional and dignified. Even just these visitors alone, and their hosts, are themselves instances of felicity.
There is more: the island, in rhythm with its coralline nature, grows by accretion. See, the paintings for sale are by Negros and Mindanao artists. T-shirts are made in Davao City. The marlin, mackerel, and grouper gracing the sumptuous diners by gaslight at the beach, are caught from off the island of Tablas, as well as from near the "mainland," Aklan. Fresh vegetables are imported from as far as Laguna, the rice from Mindoro, the pork and beef from Kalibo and vicinity, in Aklan. Building materials such as sawali and bamboo are transported by the ubiquitous boats from the Aklanon towns of Ibajay and Malay. And the pearls and sarongs for sale at the beach are peddled by itinerant merchants from Mindanao and Sulu. The
once more, perhaps again and again, and absorbing the delicacy of its lessons. Balance of forces created it. Balance of forces—market vis a vis ecology, business vis a vis aesthetic wisdom, the desirous human being vis a vis the polyp and the echinoderm—may keep it regenerative.
Thus the master plan calls for reasonable land-use zoning of Boracay's 1,000-some hectares: 28.78% to be maintained as forest preserve, 27.18% as orchard, leaving 83.06% as "buildable" area in the barangays of Yapak (50.73%),Manoc-Manoc(14.71%)andBalabag(17.62%) for sustainable tourism-oriented infrastructure. A planned golf course which will take up some 11% of the land will double as a recharging zone for the aquifer. The rest of Boracay will be reserved for wetlands development, lagoons and reservoirs, waterways, low density residential areas (including a civic and sports center for the 6000-some native Boracaynons), and a special Panay Island Tribes Camp Site for the indigenous Ati, an aboriginal people. Also in the plan are rationalized locations for boat landings, bicycle lanes and bridle paths, look-out points, inland
sky-water blue—they will alter the dances of winds, and the flight of calcium particles, and thus the replenishment of that beach of white fairy dust.
Which is why the master plan insists on specifics governing heights of structures, distance from beach fronts, sites to be developed, density of buildings and people. Which is also why a lot of problem-solving effort is directed at projected, rather than already exploding problems. Undersecretary Ty is emphatic about broad local participation in development, balanced with the understanding that micro sites like Boracay must be seen within the context of regional development plans. Balance, therefore, once more: an equipoise must be achieved, among local government (vested with the power to license businesses), provincial officials (vested with the power to articulate and effect regional plans), the Department of Tourism (interfacing between the nation and the world), and Boracay residents and entrepreneurs (who define, or must define, their own interest and responsibilities—the basis of power). The challenge is to a sense of nuance.
The latter have responded to the call of the moment by coalescing into BUILD, The Boracay United Investors League for Development, now the focus of no small amount of expectation, because it is hoped that this abstraction "people representation" maybe realized, made real through its activities. Again fragility is a central metaphor. For consensus-building and the nurturing of political wisdom—which, given momentum, may lead to the creation of protected Tourism zones by legislative feat—is a feat of building strength out of layers and layers of fragile though nonetheless life-enhancing, points of agreement. Perhaps it is Boracay's special place to be exemplar of fragility, delicacy, nuance, balance—as source of strength.
As a boat took me away from the island, I espied a celebration on a small beach, not far from the tourist areas. Squinting, I saw that this was no tourist party. A boatman said it was a wedding, a Boracaynon event. The merrymaking seemed perfectly private, despite the openness of the island practically to the entire world. Apparently there are ways of creating a refined detente between worlds.
intensified and enlarged circulation of goods and people may raise the level of commercial crassness, but, for the moment, constructions seem well-connected to well-being all around.
Two Filipino entrepreneurs on the island make for an enlightening study of the surprsingly thoughful but upbeat dynamics of tourism as an industry, Boracay-style. The lady resort owner from Manila, was educated as a sociologist. While rhythmically conducting business, she finds a moment to wistfully express a desire to one day engage in research, and in a sociologically-based development process for the island. ("I ought to be studying the Ati!") The young man, an Aklanon who was formerly a student for the priesthood and subsequently a graduate of philosophy, contibutes to raise the level of discussion concerning the island's prospects with a laid-back but nonetheless philosophical equanimity. Both address their island's environmental concerns with a unique mix of practicality, the intellectual's contemplativeness, a keeness toward local culture and a fondness for the phrase "long term."
This blend of cosmopolitanism and love of the local, does not impress me as akin to standard tourism-business hyperbole. Boracay has its share of promoters given to extremes of poetic license. But Boracay, too sets limits to excess, precisely because it is so beautifully, breath-takingly fragile. Too many resorts, huts, eateries proliferating along White Beach will not only block the view of that seamless
Boracay,s crystal clear waters beckon to children and adults alike. A mother spends a day at the beach with her young son, above. The legendary western shore of Boracay depends upon a fragile eco­system to sustain its beauty, top. Will it survive the onslaught of increasing tourism?
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