Not another sinkhole, please

By the end of the Boracay Inter-Agency Task Force's extended term in June 2022, domestic tourism was on the verge of a huge resurgence.

The body tasked during the time of President Rodrigo R. Duterte to facilitate the rehabilitation of the Philippines' most famous island did indeed manage to get the areas in and around the Panay destination clean, and ready for travelers once more.

The pandemic was a "bonus" in allowing the place to live and breathe even longer than the first prescribed six months before droves of revenge travelers arrived to bask in the sun and sea.

By October 2021, then Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Roy Cimatu said it might be worth looking into increasing Boracay's "carrying capacity" as tourism had picked up significantly.

He said people were already exploring more areas on the island, even parts that used to be "shunned" due to pollution.

A Daily Tribune editor who lived in Boracay for several months at the height of the pandemic attested to the island's healthy condition, from the famed "front" main beach to the "back".

Cimatu hoped to help boost tourism and asked the DENR's Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau to study the possibility of allowing more people into the island.

Now, however, that idea might as well evaporate under hot scrutiny, as the latest study reveals that visits to Boracay may need to be restricted within its "carrying capacity."

Yes, Boracay, which is entirely of limestone, has been found to have 815 sinkholes in 2022, up from 789 in 2018.

The numbers have kept rising each year, as shown in the DENR's Karst Subsidence Hazard Mapping.

"Sinkholes," explained engineer Mae Magarzo, head of the Geosciences Division of DENR's Mines and Geosciences Bureau, "are land depressions due to the removal of support underneath due to earthquake, or due to the lowering of the ground waters. These sinkholes are not found in other types of rocks but exclusively in limestone areas." Sinkholes cause structural damage, as well as affect groundwater quality.

The MGB chief, in a media forum last 12 December, warned against overpopulating the island — or exceeding the maximum of 19,215 people allowed in a day.

The Environment Agency's ERDB in 2019 recommended about "6,405 arrivals a day for a three-day stay," adding the "ideal tourist arrival per day should be 6,085."

According to reports, the sinkholes are located mostly in Boracay's barangays Manoc-manoc (with 293), Balabag and Yapak.

What is troubling is that the island, in 2018, registered a total of 70,781 population in a day (which included residents and tourists) — over 15,000 more than the island's carrying capacity of 54,945.
Are proper controls being exercised to maintain this Philippine pride?

With the end of the BIATF last June, a review of the 2018-2022 Boracay Action Plan, which had cost the government some P26 billion, was brought up to determine if "more should be done as far as the rehabilitation is concerned."

Whether this evaluation will be undertaken remains to be seen, but if the Marcos Jr. administration is serious about its environmental sustainability goals, then it had better not leave this as another sinkhole through which promises fall.