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Ric Maulion .

WHAT fast unexpected development is unfolding right before our eyes in the island paradise of Boracay?

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I wrote about this in December. At least, the government is on immediate rescue mode operation due to the severity of sewerage problem polluting Boracay’s environment.

The massive rehabilitation has been going on and would go on until the 6th month. Let’s hope for the best results — that the huge handsome dividend to our government coffers through the tourism industry would accrue in the end. A steady and more tourists in the area is actually as clear as sunny day.

The government’s response might be an overkill to many observers, catching residents off-guard and displacing thousands of workers in the process. But it is the way to go. It’s the price of development.

To someone who has experienced the gravity of the problem first-hand, I would say it’s better late than never. Besides the rehabilitation is only temporary until the sewerage system is fixed and completed. What is important is an honest-to-goodness effort in cleaning the area of pollutants and toxic rubbish.

Just how urgent is this? Check your bathroom and observe how it spoils just even for a day if you leave the bowl untreated and unflushed.

Incidentally, local radio reported about a stabbing incident lately that had something to do with cleanliness. An irate resident stabbed to death a father over his son’s toxic leftover poop in the toilet!

“Cleanliness is next to godliness, water your waste,” reads a reminder in one toilet.

Think Boracay as the biggest and largest basin polluted by excessive volume of human wastes. How could we not rescue its poor and failing sewerage system when it is one of the biggest sources of income for the government?

But, hey! Why are we so crazy about Boracay when we have our own similar problem right in our respective backyard? It’s very hard to face the problem if the problem is your face! Yes, Sir.

Why can we not clean up the mess of our own surroundings and beaches, and install proper sewerage system to protect the environment?

And what about the easements? It’s sad to learn that our long stretches of legal easements have been taken and privatized by vultures of development for their own personal vested interests and profit.

There is no need to go to Boracay, actually. Just go around and look at our surroundings. Look how squatters have occupied legal easements along our bridges. How in the world can residents even construct a chapel right on a waterway somewhere in Cugman? Or a mall extending its building right in the middle of the river? Stupid and poor urban planning!

I feel bad to see the ineptness of our authorities who are handling this problem. Of course, the present administration cannot be fully blamed on this carry-over problems of the past management.

Observe the stretches of beaches particularly in Bulua and Barra area all the way to Laguindingan. Travel would have been a breeze all the way to Laguindingan International Airport. As it is however today, what would have been passable route remains a boulevard of broken dreams.

Where are our authorities to secure these legal easements? Why are public lands even titled? And where are you, DENR people? It seems you are nowhere to be found, playing deaf and blind, and sleeping in the pancitan.

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