The Philippines is closing its best-known holiday island Boracay to tourists for up to six months over concerns that the once idyllic white-sand resort has become a "cesspool" tainted by dumped sewage, authorities said today.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the shutdown to start on April 26 for a maximum period of half a year, his spokesman Harry Roque said.
"Boracay is known as a paradise in our nation and this temporary closure is (meant) to ensure that the next generations will also experience that," Roque told reporters.
The decision jeopardises the livelihood of thousands employed in the island's bustling tourist trade that each year serves two million guests and pumps roughly $1 billion in revenue into the Philippine economy.
Experts said the measure also appeared to contradict the government's own pro-development policy for the island, including the recent approval of a planned $500-million casino and resort on Boracay.
The threat of closure first emerged in February when Duterte blasted the tiny island's hundreds of tourism-related hotels, restaurants and other businesses, accusing them of dumping sewage directly into the sea and turning it into a "cesspool".
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Authorities said today some businesses were using the island's drainage system to send untreated sewage into its surrounding turquoise waters.
The environment ministry says 195 businesses, along with more than 4,000 residential customers, are not connected to sewer lines.
But within weeks of Duterte lashing out at the local businesses, the Philippines gave the green light for Macau casino giant Galaxy Entertainment to begin construction next year of the casino and resort complex.
"The casino contradicts all the efforts now of cleaning up and making sure Boracay goes back to the state where it doesn't violate its carrying capacity," former Philippine environment undersecretary Antonio La Vina told AFP.
He added that the area has seen "unlimited" development because "local government units and the national government agencies did not do their job of enforcing rules on land use, environmental impact assessment".
Authorities said they would use the closure to build new sewage and drainage systems, demolish structures built on wetlands and sue officials and businessmen who violated environmental laws.
The impact of the decision was already being felt, with domestic airlines announcing they would scale back the number of flights to the jumping off point to the 1,000-hectare (2,470-acre) island.
Malaysian low-cost carrier Asia Air has suspended all of its domestic and international flights to Boracay until further notice.
"I am really in a quandary on how to handle six months (of closure)," budget hostel manager Manuel Raagas told AFP.
"There will be no income and we have bills to pay so I don't know how I will survive."
"Whether foreign or local, they will not be allowed to enter the island."
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