BORACAY Island, Malay Aklan-- Boracay Inter-Agency Task Force (BIATF) will continuously managed the affairs of this resort island until April 2020.
Natividad Belarmino, general manager of the Boracay Inter Agency Management and Rehabilitation Group which is under the task force said that this means that the local government would just have to cooperate with whatever the BIATF mandates.
On May 13, Malay mayor Ciceron Cawaling was re-elected. Under the local government code, the local chief executive empowers to decide in managing their respective jurisdiction.
However, when the resort island was closed last year, the affairs of Boracay was taken over by the task force.
“By April 2020, we in the task force will hand over the management of Boracay to the local government,” Belarmino told SunStar in an interview.
Cawaling on his part earlier said that they are also eager to give an open dialogue with the members of the task force soon. Cawaling was earlier suspended by the Department of Interior and Local Government for alleged mismanagement of this resort island.
On May 22, the task force has temporarily closed down 11 establishments allegedly owned by Chinese and South Korean businessmen. The firms reportedly has failed to renew their respective business permits.
The said firms closed were Bellas Bar and Restaurants, Great Wall Inn and Restaurant, Old Captain Cuisine, Ken Minimart, Ken St, Island Staff Restaurant, Coco Spa, Kim Ji Man, W Hostel Boracay Dragon, VIP Souvenir Shop and YH World Network Service Inc.
Belarmino said that they will be allowed to operate again once they had complied with their requirements. The forced closure of the establishments was also participated by the representatives coming from the Bureau of Immigration, Philippine National Police, and Bureau of Fire Protection and from the local government.
“We will be closing more erring stores soon. There are many illegal dummy violators in Boracay and our legal team are doing their best to build a strong case against them. The increase of numbers of Chinese and South Koreans in Boracay is due to the tourism boom,” she added.
Sources from the local government of Malay said that they estimate around 90 percent of foreign establishments in Boracay are using a dummy to make their firm legal.
“Many foreign nationalities uses several Filipinos as front to their business to make it legal. Filipino dummies are usually hired as managers and were being paid from P5,000 to P20,000 a month,” the source who requested anonymity said. (SunStar Philippines)