{"id":162479,"date":"2018-05-03T01:28:17","date_gmt":"2018-05-03T05:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=162479"},"modified":"2018-05-03T01:28:17","modified_gmt":"2018-05-03T05:28:17","slug":"duterte-not-keen-on-turning-entire-boracay-into-commercial-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/05\/03\/duterte-not-keen-on-turning-entire-boracay-into-commercial-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Duterte not keen on turning \u2018entire\u2019 Boracay into commercial area"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"To<\/a>
To date, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has identified some 15.5 hectares tracts of agricultural land in Boracay ready to be subjected to the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).(Photo by Tomas Tam [Attribution]<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Insisting that Boracay is a forestal and agriculture land, President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Wednesday said that he only wanted a portion of Boracay used for commercial purposes such as tourism.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, \u2018yung Boracay is forestal agriculture. Do not push me to the wall.\u00a0Kasi hindi pa<\/em>\u00a0commercial\u00a0\u2018yan<\/em>\u00a0(Because that\u2019s not for commercial purposes),\u201d Duterte said in a speech in Mulanay, Quezon.<\/p>\n

Duterte said that because he is not keen on turning Boracay into a commercial area, he would only be willing to dedicate a portion of the island for tourism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not in favor of converting it into a commercial. So we can have a portion there may be \u2018yung mga (the) hotels\u00a0na<\/em>… If that is really the will of Congress\u00a0na hindi naman matuluyan mamatay talaga ang<\/em>\u00a0(so that tourism will not die in) Boracy,\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

Duterte said that if tourism stakeholders would not agree with his conditions, he would proceed to implement land reform in the entire island.<\/p>\n

\u201cKung hindi tayo magkaintindihan dito, i<\/em>-land reform\u00a0ko lahat \u2018yan. Ibigay ko sa tao \u2018yan. Tutal ang yayaman diyan \u2018yung may-ari ng mga<\/em>hotel (If we do not agree with each other I will place the area under land reform. I\u2019ll give it to the people. Anyway, hotel owners are the only ones getting rich),\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

To date, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has identified some 15.5 hectares tracts of agricultural land in Boracay ready to be subjected to the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).<\/p>\n

DAR Acting Secretary John Castriciones earlier said his agency is just waiting for Duterte to give the go-signal to start implementing agrarian reform in the top tourist destination.<\/p>\n

Duterte, meanwhile, denied that he has a hidden agenda for ordering the temporary closure of Boracay last April 26 to give way to its rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWala akong<\/em>\u00a0agenda.\u00a0Matanda na ako. Hindi na ako makatakbo<\/em>. Last term\u00a0ko na \u2018to<\/em>\u00a0(I don\u2019t have an agenda. I\u2019m old. I can\u2019t run for the next elections. This is my last term),\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

The President also appealed to critics of the closure to allow the government to do its job to fully clean up Boracay and vowed to allow Congress to decide to declare it as a forestal, agriculture or even commercial area.<\/p>\n

\u201cGanito lang. Linisin ko \u2018yan, pagkatapos ibalik ko. Ibalik ko sa gobyerno, hindi sa amin.<\/em>\u00a0Then I\u2019ll let Congress decide\u00a0kung anong gusto ninyo<\/em>\u00a0(This is what we are going. We\u2019ll clean it up, then we\u2019ll return it. It\u2019s not ours. Then I\u2019ll let Congress decide what it wants to do with it),\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

Duterte\u2019s order to close Boracay for six months was criticized following reports that the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation approved the license of Macau-based Galaxy Entertainment Group, Ltd. and Philippines\u2019 Leisure and Resorts World, Corporation for a USD500-million casino on the island.<\/p>\n

Malaca\u00f1ang has denied any link between the temporary closure of Boracay for \u2018rehabilitation\u2019 and the building of a huge casino-resort on the island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Insisting that Boracay is a forestal and agriculture land, President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Wednesday said that he only …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":86185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[2747,6054],"class_list":["post-162479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ph","tag-boracay","tag-duterte","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}