Neda: Boracay needs P25.27-B investments to be sustainable

Fully rehabilitating the top tourist spot Boracay Island after its six-month closure last year will entail P25.27 billion in investments from both the government and the private sector, the state planning agency National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said on Monday.

In a statement, Neda said this investment requirement was identified in the medium-term Boracay Action Plan (BAP) adopted last December by the Boracay Interagency Task Force. Neda spearheaded the crafting of the BAP.

It said P16.21 billion, or almost two-thirds of the total investments needed to ensure that Boracay would be sustainable moving forward, would be spent on infrastructure development.

The bulk of these investments worth P15.89 billion will be shouldered by the private sector.

The entire BAP listed 233 programs, projects and activities aimed at “[instilling] safeguards from ecological degradation and sustain tourism activities in Boracay.”

“It (the BAP) primarily provides the strategic interventions to ensure the island’s rehabilitation over the medium term and sustainable management over the long term,” Neda Undersecretary Adoracion Navarro said.

The BAP was aimed at making Boracay a “secure and globally competitive world-class tourism destination with a vibrant, productive and climate-resilient economy that is geared toward inclusive growth and anchored on the sustainable development of its innate natural resources.”

The plan is awaiting President Duterte’s approval. Neda said that once the President approved the BAP, it would be implemented until 2022.

The Boracay Interagency Task Force was formed under Executive Order No. 53 after Mr. Duterte ordered the popular tourist destination shut down between April and October last year for environmental degradation.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and Neda chief Ernesto Pernia had partly blamed the slower economic growth posted during the second and third quarters of 2018 to Boracay’s temporary closure, which impacted on the tourism sector. —BEN O. DE VERA