BRIDGES generally connote progress. The proposed bridge connecting Caticlan and Boracay Island in Aklan, however, can lead to the Paradise Island’s destruction.
The Conde Nast Traveler’s survey for Readers’ Choice Award recently declared Boracay as Asia’s best island. The accolade adds to other recognitions of Boracay’s glamor and glitz that have made it a tourist draw. Preserving the island’s natural assets is surely more logical than a bridge to its downgrade and eventual destruction.
Six months after the government closed Boracay, order has returned to the island, prompting people to conceive schemes, including the bridge, for its exploitation. For certain, the bridge will allow the free entry of squatters. Likewise, overloading the island with visitors will irreversibly abuse its pristine beaches, decimate its land area, encourage skyscrapers that distort its landscape, deplete water resources, invite morally distorted occupations, and subvert peace and order.
Exposing Boracay to obsessive development will forever ruin its charm and unique desirability. Even under local government regulation, the island has become an expensive place to visit, an adverse compliment that can only progressively worsen.
It is on account of these serious concerns that during its 24th National Press Congress, the Publishers Association of the Philippines, Inc. (PAPI) General Assembly passed a resolution supporting the collective voice of the people of Caticlan and Boracay opposing the misplaced bridge initiative.
Junk the bridge project, preserve Boracay!
-o0o-
Liberating six million Filipinos (1.1 million families) from poverty in just three years, as reported by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), is no mean feat. Of the country’s 100 million population, PSA reported that poverty incidence has shrunk to 17.6 million in 2018 from 23.5 million in 2015.
Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, a noted economist who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, attributes the impressive feat to ‘Dutertenomics,’ the administration’s socio-economic masterplan.
‘Dutertenomics’ includes the ambitious ‘Build, Build, Build program which has already created some two million jobs, and the Salceda-authored Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act, the masterplan’s first reform package.
The feat exceeds expectations considering the 6.7% inflation last year due to hiked food prices. Aside from helping fund “Build, Build, Build,” TRAIN reduced personal income tax and increased the take-home pay of 99% of 7.5 million wage earners.
The poverty reduction feat also “dilutes criticisms against the TRAIN which many said will only worsen poverty,” Salceda noted.
