Boracay residents oppose opening of casinos

A community leader said locals in Boracay opposed President Rodrigo Duterte’s proposal to re-open the casinos in the island amid the pandemic.

“For us, it’s a bit shocking. Because after saying that he hates casinos, he doesn’t like gambling, it made us all happy. But now, with this new pronouncement, it’s kinda scary because you don’t know what’s gonna happen,” Nenette Aguirre-Graf, a business owner in Boracay, said.

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“’Cause right now, ‘di ba, we’re promoting Boracay as a family destination? It’s been like that for years. In fact, we didn’t allow go-go bars and anything that will tarnish the image of the island as a family destination.”

“We all know that what goes with the casino island or having casinos in an island–it goes with, you know, drugs, prostitution, criminality and all those things. And money laundering and many other things that [are] negative,” she added.

Graf argued that the government should intensify the COVID-19 vaccination on the island.

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“Send more vaccines to the island and open it to tourism, and I think we will be able to generate the money that they need, without resorting to opening the island to casinos. I-vaccinate niya kami, and we will be okay,” she said.

Boracay residents oppose opening of casinos

She noted not all tourism workers on Boracay have been vaccinated.

“The goal now is to have 1,000 vaccinated in a day. Hopefully, this week, we can inoculate more people,” she said.

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She also supported the calls for Boracay to have a separate quarantine classification from the rest of Aklan.

“Because first of all, we’re geographically separated from the mainland. We operate a resort island. We’re not a regular town,” she said.

“We’ve been asking for that separate quarantine since last year. Pero the IATF, especially the provincial IATF, reluctant sila. Parang yung ibang towns ay pwedeng hindi maging masaya, why we have to be treated differently when we all belong to the same province.”

“They have to understand that we make money for the whole province also and for the Philippines,” she noted.

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