President Rodrigo Duterte has approved the P25 billion Boracay Medium-Term Action Plan to maintain the top tourist spot following its 6-month closure last year.

Duterte approved the plan “which will sustain the efforts of the government after its closure” during the 39th Cabinet meeting on Monday night, his spokesman Salvador Panelo said yesterday.

The plan covers four areas namely:

• Enforcement of laws where there will be intervention on the regulation of visitors and hotel accommodations
• Prevention where there will be interventions on the sewerage infrastructure, solid and liquid waste management
• Rehabilitation and recovery of ecosystems
• Sustainability of activities on the island such as improvement of roads and public health infrastructure, construction of permanent housing program for indigenous people and education facilities.

Boracay, once dubbed by President Duterte as a “cesspool,” was shuttered for half a year in 2018 to give way to the rehabilitation of its sewerage system and the demolition of illegal structures.

Despite Boracay’s closure last year, tourism-related businesses contributed 12.7 percent of the Philippine economy and created 5.4 million jobs according to Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat. (ABS-CBN News)