MANDAUE CITY, Cebu—An owner of a surveying office in Leyte who treated her employees to a vacation in Bohol last week hopes that the issue of the high prices of food on Virgin Island will be addressed.
The owner, who requested anonymity, made the appeal after they were made to pay P26,000 during their tour at the popular tourist destination in Panglao, Bohol on Friday, July 29, 2022.
“May unta maaksyunan nila kay dili lang man sad kami muadto hasta uban turista. Ma enjoy sila sa lugar, maguol naman nuon sila sa baryanan ig human,” she said
(We hope this will be addressed because it is not only us who go there, there are also tourists. They might enjoy the place but they will surely worry about the expenses after.)
The issue came to light when a post of one of her friends regarding the expensive prices of food on Virgin Island went viral.
She said they were on their third day of their five-day vacation in Bohol when this happened.
She said they have already expected that food on the island will be expensive because it is one of the more popular destinations in Bohol. But they did not anticipate that it would be that pricey.
The food that they ordered included P800 worth of lato, or sea grapes, 19 bananas worth P900, and sea urchins that cost P100 each, among others.
She said that they did not intend to put businesses there on a bad light but they just wanted to make tourists aware of the prices so that they could prepare or bring their own food of they visited the island.
On Tuesday, August 2, Bohol Governor Aris Aumentado ordered the Sangguniang Panlungsod to conduct an investigation on the matter and will call an emergency meeting with DENR and LGU of Panglao.
READ: Bohol guv orders probe on ‘overpriced’ food in Virgin Island
The Department of the Environment and Natural Resources in Central Visayas is also currently conducting a probe on the issue.
/bmjo