WE were in Boracay over the weekend, less than a week before the day (today) President Duterte’s order to shut down the island takes effect. I was surprised to find the famous Station 2 bursting with activity. The fire dancers were there, lamps swinging rhythmically from their hands while their bodies swayed to the beat blaring from a music player.
I saw sand castles on the beach and, in the sea, the shadows of the ubiquitous sailboats framed in dying sunlight. I did not notice anyone swimming but it was probably because it was low tide and getting dark, and not because of the fear of accidentally drinking seawater that is said to teem with coliform. From where we stood, the sea appeared blue, not green, but as I said it was growing dark and besides, my vision is impaired.
I had been warned by a well-meaning friend not to swim in Boracay. She probably meant not to dip in the sea unless she did not know that I could not, alas, swim. So all I did was walk on the beach in Station 2 when I was not watching the fire dancers or looking at the silhouettes of the ubiquitous sailboats.
I was planning on writing that evening that a pall of doom hung over Boracay when I arrived but on my first night, I noticed no sense of foreboding at all.
We stayed in a quieter section of the island. The hotel sits at the foot of a hill amid generous foliage. The sound of birds chirping in the morning was a welcome relief from the at-times enjoyable and at-time oppressive noise at Station 2 the night before. You could not see half-clad guests except at the beach and the staff spoke in hushed tones.
There the atmosphere was a little somber, the awareness of imminent closure of the island more pronounced and the uncertainty of what was to follow in the next six months manifested more openly.
I spoke to a few employees and their reactions varied according to their employment status. The regular ones said they were promised that there was going to be no layoff, they will just be re-assigned to the hotel chain’s other properties. The contractual workers were more anxious; they had no security of tenure and could only trust on their respective agencies being able to find them another employment.
He’ll probably just return home to Antique and wait it out until the island is re-opened, a beach sweeper told me. The guy who made sure we had transport from Station 2 to the hotel on Saturday evening had similar plans, only that home was in Manila and he was not certain if he would ever get back his job again. A lady in the front desk said that she had been looking forward to being absorbed into the regular staff but she is not too certain anymore.
But it was the van driver who drove us from the pier to the airport in Caticlan whose story really moved us. He was married, had kids and driving was his only skill. With the resort closed, even if temporarily, how could he feed and clothe them?
The government said it would lose nearly P2 billion from the closure of Boracay. Actually, that’s lesser than the loss a displaced employee like the van driver will suffer from the same cause.