HE said — SHE said

Boracay’s closure for rehabilitation seemed rushed after President Rodrigo Duterte called it a “cesspool.” It was crunch time for Rody. The island needed it to be saved.

Critics of the closure saw it differently. The President entertained a group of casino investors a couple of weeks before he raised his “cesspool” gambit. Several groups did not buy it. It was for the China-backed gambling house, they said.

Rehabilitation at the beach front, however, unveiled a different face of the island. It was not like that before. It was cleaner, the water safer to wade and swim into.

Boracay was different only two decades ago. Until the big investors came to deface what was once an island paradise.

Malls and restaurants sprouted with wild abandon that, except for the beach, tourists would mistake the island’s face for just about any highly commercialized beachfront in some other parts of the country. Laiya in Batangas would fare better than Boracay in comfort and peace of mind, two things we look for when we go on vacation.

Government agencies tasked with Boracay’s rehabilitation, however, did not seem ready for the task. They were also caught by surprise by the President’s order for Boracay’s closure.

Even the police and the military had to be called in to quell protests from the locals and the workforce displaced by the stoppage in the whole operation of the island.

There was nothing like it in the past decades. No government operation was that big for sewage cleanup. Yes, for a sewage cleanup!

The urgency in which the closure was ordered would have been justified. But the time given to rehabilitate the island was too short to make it happen.

There is no quick fix for Boracay. Six months are not enough. It entails a longer time to make the rehabilitation work.

Boracay is like a fishing ground with a dwindling supply of fish. It needs a rebirth. If we drive away people from waters to give fish space and time for spawning, we should drive away non-local people from Boracay. And government should start with the establishments which have abused the island. It should start telling the locals to follow construction rules.

Boracay, however, is scheduled for reopening in October. The public, although limited entry is being proposed, will be welcomed anew to witness the still minute improvements since its closure.

The island’s innards, however, are still the same.

Its roads remain as they were when they were constructed, small and tight. If there is traffic on EDSA, there was traffic in the eskinita (narrow lanes) of Boracay. It will be the same situation when visitors and tourists flock back to the island.

A proposal to build a bridge from Aklan to Boracay will not help control the influx of people to and fro what was once a true paradise. That is for another story, but this rubbernecker hopes his reader gets the picture.

When the senators asked the Department of Interior and Local Government if it was ready for the reopening, Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III admitted it is just about 30 percent prepared for the task.

It was like saying the cake hasn’t risen, yet will be served soggy and unappealingly moist.

But why is there a rush? Is there a deadline for its opening? For what? For whom?

Densing said only 30 percent of the establishments have complied with the order to connect to the new sewer line. That number is expected as they were given just six months.

The entry of big business in Boracay had slowed down operations of the small entrepreneurs who once thrived on the island. Many of them do not have the financial capability to renovate shops and stores on short notice.

The abrupt closure of Boracay also meant the death of small business for some.

Densing was right when he said every establishment should follow the order. It’s for them.

He was also right when he said it was not to the interest of everybody to keep Boracay closed.

But to open the island when it is not ready for a full, proper operation will not also serve the interest of rehabilitation if it is rushed anew.

There must be some semblance of a plan. Government should not work based on instinct.

Unless somebody needs Boracay to go back to business badly.

Sen. Cynthia Villar had good reason to lose her cool at the third Senate hearing on the rehabilitation of Boracay.

It can be pretty annoying to get conflicting answers to one simple question which, in her case, was on how many establishments would be able to open on the island’s target reopening date in late October if the rehabilitation only targeted 30 percent.

The Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee chair scored the Boracay rehab team’s slow pace and its confusing figures. At one point she said she felt she was being deliberately befuddled with figures which she found tiresome and clearly a waste of time.

This was because the undersecretaries of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) gave her vastly different figures on the number of establishments in Boracay they had found compliant.

DILG’s Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III said they had inspected 2,384 establishments, out of which 440 were resorts and hotels. Of these, only 71 complied with the sewerage requirements.

DENR’s Ernesto Adobo, meanwhile, said there were 162 resorts and hotels in Boracay, with 141 still not equipped with a proper sewage facility.

The numbers, even for non-mathematical whizzes, have too wide a discrepancy to be acceptable. It exposes the sheer lack or absence of coordination among the agencies involved.

This was also evident in a previous report in which the chairman of the Boracay Inter-Agency Task Force (BIATF) and DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu proudly revealed there would be a one-stop shop for permits, licenses and certifications for Boracay business owners but only to confuse by adding that their one-stop shop would be located in Station 3 of Boracay’s White Beach while the DILG and possibly the Department of Tourism would presumably have theirs in another part of Boracay!

But surely, the Boracay rehab team did not mean to exasperate the good lady. Yet for a sharp-minded businesswoman, the apparent inconsistencies — or perhaps just the lack of coordination among those involved in the inter-agency task force — became a source of irritation.

It does make sense — given the six months to do wonders for the famed island that had obviously been horrendously abused for years, the Boracay rehabilitation task force appeared to fail miserably with a target that Villar called “very low.”

We all know how slow government work can take in ordinary circumstances. How much more if several agencies are tasked to work together?

The systems we have in place seem to be vague on the concept of transparency and coordination.

This is seen in many other projects either gone kaput or totally berserk — some local government units, for example, refuse to cooperate with the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority on traffic rules. They insist on fielding their own traffic enforcers in their area. They insist on not following the time “windows” for no number coding. The result is one more headache for hapless motorists.

Cooperation between agencies is so novel that I personally found it amazing that three different ones — the Departments of Transportation, Public Works and Highways and the Bases Conversion and Development Authority — could see eye to eye and actually attest to being able to work together smoothly for a common goal.

I am certainly not implying that the BIATF members are infighting, far from it. It just seems very apparent that they still need to coordinate better with each other — and more than that, be far more ambitious in their targets.

After all, their work would become the model in which other government rehab programs could be based. Already, some leaders are suggesting the rehabilitation of key waterways in the metropolis.

If they fall below expectations, then the country has reason to feel quite dismal about the future.