During his speech at the second Philippine Environment Summit held in Cebu City Tuesday, Cimatu voiced his dismay at the deterioration of Cebu’s rivers, esteros and creeks due to the dumping of wastes particularly plastics.
Though that topic concerns local governments it is somewhat related to what is happening now with the hotels and resorts in Central Visayas, particularly Panglao, Bohol province which Cimatu is scheduled to visit aside from El Nido in Palawan.
Cimatu zeroed in on the problem that gained national spotlight following President Rodrigo Duterte’s blunt description of Boracay as a “cesspool” by saying that it is a matter of overdevelopment.
Namely, that once word came out of Boracay’s pristine white sand beaches, developers saw money and began building their own resorts and hotels into the area encouraging locals to also build their own in order to get a share of the expected tourism revenue bonanza.
But in the rush to profit, local officials failed to come out with development plans aimed at rationalizing the placement of resorts and hotels and simply allowed these developers free rein in exchange for the taxes they generate for the island.
In Mactan, Cebu where hotels and resorts abound and more condos are expected to rise, is the Lapu-Lapu City government strictly monitoring and requiring compliance from owners on environmental safety and anti-pollution requirements?
That’s something that Cimatu would have to ask local environment authorities about if he were still around that is. For that matter, how does one know and rate the compliance of hotels, resorts and other establishments whether located near beaches/coastlines or not in Metro Cebu to anti-pollution and environmental safety standards?
But it’s not just the job of environment authorities to monitor and ensure such compliance even if they are the lead movers since more than anything they lack both the will and the teeth to enforce this compliance on the violators.
Local officials also share that responsibility though they may tend to overlook the violations in view of the revenue they generate from these hotels, resorts and other commercial establishments.
Also sharing culpability in the deterioration and pollution of beaches and coastlines are the settlers who move in after seeing the deluge of visitors and establishments and carelessly dump their wastes anywhere they please as well as the visitors themselves who do likewise.
The most obvious and convenient solution would be to build toilets for the visitors and even the settlers to use and requiring hotels and resorts to build their own wastewater discharge facilities so that whatever wastes they dispose at sea won’t damage the marine ecosystem.
But the better and most urgent solution is to instill and foster a mindset and sense of accountability on every stakeholder from the hotels to the visitors to clean their surroundings and make sure they leave the place as clean as when they found it.