The travel trade “may already accept bookings for Oct. 27 onwards,” Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Roy Cimatu said in a social media post.
Boracay island will reopen as scheduled in October this year, six months after the Philippine government closed it down for rehabilitation work.
The travel trade “may already accept bookings for Oct. 27 onwards,” Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Roy Cimatu said in a social media post.
He said water quality on the island’s White Beach is already improving based on the regular monitoring conducted by the Environment department (DENR).
Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat earlier said she was hopeful that the schedule for Boracay’s reopening would be met but left the decision to Cimatu.
“Secretary Cimatu will be the best person to say environmental laws are complied and Boracay will open,” Puyat said.
A September “soft opening” is being considered, according to some government officials involved in the rehabilitation programme, but a decision has not yet been made.
The island was closed down last April 26 after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the closure, calling the island a “cesspool” citing widespread environmental problems.
In the course of the rehabilitation work, government workers uncovered illegal drainage pipes from some business establishments that drained out to the beach.
The government earlier said it was considering filing complaints against local government executives and past officials of the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA) over their alleged failure to properly implement environmental laws in Boracay.