Telling our stories: Sun, sand and sustainability

MANILA, Philippines — Everytime I go abroad, there’s always someone who can’t wait to tell me about Boracay. This was even before I was appointed Secretary to the Department of Tourism. It usually happens after they find out I’m Filipino.

It’s then that they share a favorite memory of visiting the island. Their tales and anecdotes, some going as far back as the early 1980s, are always told with such warmth and nostalgia that you can already anticipate the inevitable conclusion of stories like these: that Boracay, as they knew it, is gone. 

Such is the fate of most Edens. At least in the stories we’ve been told and that we tell.

Things have changed though since we closed Boracay last year to rehabilitate the island. Since then, the stories have started to take on a different tone, one of hope and excitement to visit again. It is no longer a paradise lost.

In the span of one year, Boracay has gone from a toxic environmental disaster-in-the-making to the country’s shining example of sustainable tourism. At every tourism event that I attend, the Philippines is applauded and recognized for how we’ve handled the rehabilitation. During the 22nd ASEAN Tourism Ministers Meeting in Vietnam last January, overtourism was the main issue. Popular destinations like Phuket and Bali are also coping with the effects of poor sewage management and unregulated construction, much like it was in Boracay before the closure. We didn’t need to say we were already implementing the necessary policies and measures, they knew we were already. While other countries are still focusing on cleanup, the Philippines has set the carrying capacity of the island and enforced the easement rule, which prevents any structures from being set up 30 meters from the highest tide measured inland.

If there was something I kept hearing, it was the hope that other countries would do the same. 

I am always asked how we were able to do it and actually close an island paradise during its peak season. 

My answer is always the same. You just have to do it. 

After all, tourism isn’t just about marketing our spectacular landscapes and driving up the number of international arrivals. It’s also about making difficult decisions that may be unpopular in the short term but with far-reaching benefits. That takes a lot of political will as well as cooperation between agencies.

In the case of Boracay, we at the Department of Tourism worked closely with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources headed by Secretary Roy Cimatu, the Department of the Interior and Local Government headed by Secretary Eduardo Año, and the Department of Public Works and Highways headed by Secretary Mark Villar. Our orders were clear and everyone worked together to follow them.

That’s the only way you can do it.

But tourism isn’t just about Boracay. It is an entire industry that has developed provinces, built cities, created businesses and provided jobs. Tourism spurs development of rural areas and the countryside. Tiny islands in our archipelago progress because of infrastructure development. Imagine, many areas that were isolated from the rest of the country are now places worth traveling thousands of miles for. The residents of these far-flung areas no longer have to bear the hardship of having under-developed connectivity, inadequate power, and the lack of health and safety facilities.

More importantly, they now have ensured livelihoods that can feed families and put children to school.  That said, tourism should also play a role in preserving local culture. Heritage sites like our Baroque churches in the Ilocos region or natural wonders like the Cordillera rice terraces have been spared from urbanization through cultural tourism. In the Visayas, Silay City has distinctive and well-preserved heritage houses that are a link to our colonial past. Homeowners have converted these into museums or bed and breakfast accommodations that showcase our history and prevent our important heritage structures from being destroyed. Even traditions such as the T’nalak weaving traditions of the T’boli people of Lake Sebu in South Cotabato continue to thrive because of government support and tourism.

Looking to the future, there are many more plans that I want to implement and programs I want to see take effect.  

Farm tourism is one of them. R.A. 10816, also known as the Farm Tourism Development Act of 2016, institutionalizes the farm tourism programs of the government and opens new perspectives for inclusive and sustainable agricultural and rural development. 

It’s a program that’s very close to my heart. 

When I was working as an undersecretary for the Department of Agriculture, I spent years traveling around the country, talking to farmers and hearing about how their struggle to do one of the nation’s most important jobs. Spend a day with a farmer and you will begin to appreciate how much it takes to feed a nation. It makes you grateful for the food on your plate and the workers who till the land. Besides giving farmers much needed additional income streams, farm tourism will allow the rest of us to truly appreciate their work and how much it contributes to our entire nation.

If there’s anything that tourism can really do it’s to engender and evoke empathy and compassion. That’s something I learned early on, from my father. He traveled the world long before he left his hometown, Camiling, Tarlac. Going to the school library, he would read about other places and their people. My dad read so much that by the time he did get to fly to other countries he would know more about it than its citizens. But he always encouraged us to travel if we could. 

Being there, wherever that is, completed the story. 

He told me that visiting other countries and experiencing different cultures makes you truly appreciate how diverse and complex the world is, yet also makes you see how similar we all are. 

The same can be said of our own archipelago. 

We are a diverse culture. That’s something we don’t always know what to make of, but we should celebrate it. It’s that diversity that makes us different, it’s what sets us apart, and makes us more fun. 

Now that’s the story we can tell.

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(Berna Romulo-Puyat was appointed Secretary of Tourism in 2018. She joined government in 2005 and, prior to her appointment, served as undersecretary for the Department of Agriculture. Her father is the statesman Alberto G. Romulo.)