IT WAS an exciting but peaceful visit to the southern Cebu town of Oslob for some Miss Universe candidates, but one of their activities made waves for a different reason.
Police Regional Office (PRO) Central Visayas spokesperson Chief Insp. Dexter Calacar said no untoward incident happened during the visit.
After the candidates went to watch the whale sharks, Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) Director Eric Noble described the activity as “very nice, peaceful, orderly, happy, and exciting.”
Representatives of China, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam were the ones who visited. They went whale-watching, an activity organized by the tourism department, despite appeals from environmental groups for them to skip that activity.
Anna Oposa, executive director and co-founder of Save Philippine Seas, urged organizers and candidates, in a statement, not to patronize the unregulated feeding of whale sharks in Oslob due to its effects on the species.
“In the last few years, Oslob has become a controversial tourist destination because the whale sharks are fed dead, frozen shrimp, which disrupts their natural behavior as migratory species. Tourism activities remain unregulated,” Oposa said.
The visit to southern Cebu pushed through even though the travel advisory that warned Americans, Canadians and British nationals against traveling to the town, Dalaguete and Santander has yet to be lifted.
Noble and PRO 7 Director Noli Taliño, however, have repeatedly declared southern Cebu is safe.
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Aside from CPPO and Oslob Police Station personnel, teams from the tourist police unit, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Task Force Cebu, Philippine Coast Guard and the Philippine Navy also secured the area.
In her statement, Oposa said that with the pageant being held in the Philippines early next year, Oslob’s whale watching activities will be promoted to a global audience.
She is worried that the publicity would bring more tourists to the southern Cebu town.
“This is also tantamount to the Philippine Government telling the world that it is okay to patronize the feeding of the whale sharks and unregulated marine wildlife interaction,” Oposa said.
She urged organizers and candidates to publicly state that feeding whale sharks is wrong and to promote responsible tourism practices, especially when endangered and protected species are involved.
Oposa also urged the candidates to call on the national government to pass the proposed policy standardizing marine wildlife interaction guidelines.
She appealed to the Miss Universe organization to not use footage of the candidates swimming with the whale sharks in any of the pageant’s promotional materials.