CEBU province has two major island groups under its jurisdiction, the first is Bantayan, the other is Camotes. My parents are from Camotes: the late Tatay Tiyong is from Tudela town while Nanay Juling is from Poro town. Both towns occupy one of the three islands in the Camotes group. It is connected by a land bridge to the other island occupied by San Francisco town. The other town, Pilar, occupies the other island.
The report that the Metro Cebu International Airport (MCIAA) wants to transform the airstrip built in Sta. Fe town in Bantayan island into a commercial airport caught my interest because of my roots. San Francisco also has a neglected airstrip. And like Bantayan, tourists now flock Camotes, specifically San Fran. Is it possible to transform the airstrip there into a commercial airport?
I remember when I was a Capitol beat reporter in the ‘90s having covered former governor Pablo Garcia’s visit to Camotes using a fast craft that once plied the Cebu-Camotes route. The talk on board was, of course, about Camotes and how to develop the place into a viable tourist destination. San Fran was about to become a tourist destination that it is now but services there had remained primitive.
The speedy development of the Camotes group of islands can actually be credited to the personalities that are contending for governor in Cebu in the May 2019 elections, Agnes Magpale and Gwendolyn Garcia. Magpale, before she became vice governor was a long-time Provincial Board member representing the fifth district where Camotes belongs. Many projects in Camotes are Magpale and Garcia initiatives. Magpale’s son, Miguel, succeeded her when she became vice governor.
But before them, there was former governor Emilio “Lito” Osmeña. I remember during one of my visits to Camotes years ago when talks about how to develop Camotes seemingly obsessed Capitol officials. If I remember it right, the former governor solicited the views of Japanese experts and tourism was the suggested route. Indeed, tourism is now driving the economic growth of Camotes.
I reckon, however, that it must not be a difficult one to pinpoint. Anybody who has been to San Fran can easily attest to its tourism potential. I could already attest to that when I was a teenager mostly traveling on my own to Poro and Tudela passing by San Fran when I was a teenager.
In the old days, pump boats from the Danao port going to the Poro wharf in Camotes used to “drop-off” passengers going to San Fran in the island’s shallows. One time, I was with these passengers and as the pumpboat moved slowly to the shallowest portion of the shore in Santiago where the sand could still not scrape the vessel’s hull, I saw it.
The sand, crystalline white, was made more wondrous by the clear sea water above it. The white sand wasn’t artificially spread on the shore like the ones in Lapu-Lapu City—and it was what made Santiago and San Fran popular even then. But there were the other places etched in my mind during that youthful frolic that has now become popular, like the Bukilat cavern in Tudela.
Imagine sharing those places to more tourists once the San Fran air strip also becomes a commercial airport.