DILG sets deliverables for target soft opening of Boracay

The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Tuesday disclosed the actions being taken in order to have a soft opening of the Boracay Island, which would be closed to tourists for six months beginning April 26, by August.

At a press briefing in Boracay, Interior Assistant Secretary Epimaco Densing III said the water discharge for the whole month of July should be within the standards of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and that there should be zero garbage at the sanitary landfill by the end of that month.

There is also an ongoing rehabilitation of the drainage system as the treated water was currently being discharged at the Bulabog beach.

The government also aims to dismantle by the end of July all establishments found to have violated the 30-meter shoreline easement rule, recover at least three of the five wetlands that have illegally-built structures, and hit 70 percent completion rate of the road widening project in the area.  

"This is not official because we've not elevated this to the level of the Secretary yet for discussion and approval. But maybe it's okay to disclose so that everybody would know the milestones we have to met to be able to open the island ahead of the six-month period," Densing said.

President Rodrigo Duterte has branded the island and its world-famous white-sand beach a "cesspool." He has ordered visitors be kept away from April 26 so facilities to treat raw sewage can be set up and illegal structures torn down.

Authorities then laid out a lockdown plan to keep out all foreign and Filipino tourists using more than 600 police, including a 138-member "crowd dispersal unit."

The President has also said that no casino resort would be put up in the popular holiday destination and that he was placing it under land reform, citing a Supreme Court decision in October 2008 that declared Boracay, which it classified as forested and agricultural, as state owned.  — Virgil Lopez/RSJ, GMA News