While tourists frolic in the crystal-clear waters lapping the tropical island of Boracay, local natives forced from their land by developers are fighting for their piece of paradise lost.
With its warm blue waters, powder-fine white sand and palm-fringed beach, Boracay, in the central Philippines, is widely regarded as having one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
But away from the foreshore, hotels and restaurants there is another side of paradise that many tourists don’t see or simply choose to ignore.
For the community of aboriginal Aeta — descendants of the first Filipinos who are believed to have come to the archipelago tens of thousands of years ago — the island that was once their sole domain is being taken away from them.
Many of Boracay’s 180 Aeta people fear that soon they will be forced from the 1ha plot that is their home.
Their concerns are hardly surprising. In front of their humble homes, a South Korean company is building a water sports centre. Nearby, a 1,5m concrete wall is going up that will obliterate what tiny view they still have of the famous beach.
As the bricks and mortar move steadily towards them, few of the Aeta who live here have faith that a court order protecting them from eviction will save them from the encroachment of voracious developers eager to stake a claim to the profits on offer from the lucrative tourist industry.
“They are making us leave,” said Paulo, a 30-year-old Aeta who asked that his full name not be used. “We know they will remove us once they need the land.”
Bining Salibio (68), who works as a laundry woman, said: “They build a wall and a building. They told us we would have to leave. I don’t know where we will go.”
The Aeta, a once-nomadic people who are generally shorter and darker than most Filipinos, are considered the oldest inhabitants of the archipelago.
Historians believe they crossed from Borneo island to the Philippines between 20-thousand and 30-thousand years ago using a land bridge that was partially covered by water about 5 000 years ago.
They are among the first — if not the first — inhabitants of the Philippines, according to the official National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.
The commission says that there are about 140 500 Aeta left in the country.
Although some have migrated to urban areas, small pockets of Aeta, like those in Boracay, can still be found all around the country, especially on the main island of Luzon.
But in Boracay, they have become almost invisible.
Over the last 20 years or so Boracay has grown into a world-class tourist destination. While it was originally a backpacker paradise, giant hotels and sprawling resorts are slowly spreading across the island’s landscape.
Boracay’s tourism revenues last year hit a record high of 9,18-billion pesos ($183 64-million) brought by nearly half a million foreign and local tourists, according to the Department of Tourism.
Edwin Trompeta, of the department’s Western Visayas region, said the amount represented a 16,5% increase over the 7,882-billion pesos in 2004.
Visitor arrivals to the island grew by 16,5 % to 499 457 in 2005, the last figures available, from 428 755 a year earlier.
Unlike their counterparts in other Philippine cities who have turned to begging, the Aeta people of Boracay are known for their industriousness, and many work as carpenters, gardeners, janitors and general workers at the island’s resorts.
The Aeta freely admit they do not own the land they live on, that they have simply been granted permission to stay there. But as development closes in, they are beginning to fear they may no longer have a place here.
The owners of the land, including the family of Congressman Wilfredo Miraflores, say they are only taking back plots they have allowed the Aeta to live on.
Congressman Miraflores, however, said an agreement is already in place between the landowners, the government and the Catholic diocese that cares for the Aeta to resettle them on another 1ha site donated by a charitable foundation.
“They will be moved when the area is ready,” he said, adding that a government commission for indigenous people was already designing houses for them.
Boracay Mayor Ciceron Cawaling said that infrastructure, including a school and a health centre, will be set up on the new site and that the Aeta will be given certificates of land ownership to ensure they will not be pushed out later.
He adds that many of the Aeta are not native to Boracay, rather having come here from other regions to find work.
And he says the Roman Catholic nuns who set up a cooperative for the Aeta have been trying to talk them into staying where they are.
“We can’t construct [the infrastructure] because the nuns are convincing the Aetas not to go there [to the new site],” he said.
One of the nuns working with the Aeta community, Sister Victoria Ostan, said: “They were staying in the beachfront of Boracay but since tourism arrived, they are being pushed back.”
There have been no overtly violent efforts to eject the Aeta, she said, but they certainly felt pressure to leave and the morale of the community was suffering.
The Aeta village is a world away from Boracay’s upscale resorts, with flimsy shacks perched in a muddy field and chickens, pigs and half-naked children milling about.
Sister Ostan says the Aeta suffer such health problems as tuberculosis and adds that malnutrition is widespread among the children, some of whom eat only one meal a day. Many Aeta are practically illiterate, she said.
“They don’t have enough money for health, nothing for education of children,” she said, adding that the nuns provide some food aid and help with education.
While she knows of the plan for a new residential site, Ostan said many of the Aeta still worry it will not have adequate facilities and will be too far from their jobs.
They also worry that eventually they will be forced off that land, too, she said.
Nevertheless, she said, the Aeta won’t put up much of a fight against any attempt to move them on.
“They are peaceful people. They are afraid to fight anybody.
“That is the dilemma of the Aetas. If they don’t like something, they just go away,” she said. — AFP