Meaningful protection

We wonder why resorts in Bantayan Island are again defying the law and common sense by building structures on disaster-prone shores.

Perhaps the message bears repeating to the concerned managers: Building on easement zones is not only illegal, it is wasteful.

Such building projects on forbidden land are subject to lawful demolition and are at the mercy of disasters.

Why bother initiating them in the first place? Why build for tourists, if not residents, who by staying in these structures risk injury amid storms or drowning amid surges?
We have not even begun talking about irresponsible tourism that pollutes the sea among those who patronize these resorts.

Is it this easy to play cat-and-mouse with the law at the cost of human lives and resources that belong to future generations?

Perhaps, the environment departments of towns in Daanbantayan have been excessively permissive in greenlighting these projects.

Or else they need more support from local government leaders in terms of monitoring the shores to ward off anyone who tries to break ground under their noses.

It was too late when the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Central Visayas told Bantayan’s mayors not to build permanent structures on the shore.

The reminder was made in a seminar on a day when Cebu Daily News observed and documented the brazen retaking of the shore.

Residents and resort owners as well as the town environment units need immediate reeducation about the value of unperturbed shores and the importance of keeping the coasts clear both for safety and ecological reasons.

We recommend stricter monitoring of the shores in the meantime, but the best solution will come from a citizenry and local government armed with enough information to zealously guard the shores and give meaning to their status as protected areas.