MANILA – The Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA) said it expects more competition between the two water service providers in Boracay after TIEZA was recognized as the sole regulator for the service on the island.
TIEZA said it can benchmark operational data of the two service providers and promote efficiency with incentives, as well as impose penalties for failure to meet commitments.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) earlier said that TIEZA was the sole regulator of water utilities on the resort island, allowing the agency to divide the island between the Ayala Group’s Boracay Island Water Inc. and Lucio Tan’s Boracay Tubi Systems Inc.
Before the island’s shutdown in April, both TIEZA and the National Water Resources Board were claiming to be Boracay’s water regulator.
TIEZA also said that even before President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the island’s rehabilitation, the agency had already allotted more than P1 billion to improve Boracay’s water and drainage systems and had already commenced the project in December 2017.
Meanwhile, in a video posted on Facebook, the DENR said Boracay’s water requirement was 23 million liters per day, of which 18 million would become wastewater.
The DENR estimated that Boracay’s carrying capacity was only 19,215 tourists a day and the island could only accommodate 6,405 tourist arrivals per day with the assumption that tourists will stay on the island for 3 days on average.
Boracay is set to reopen on Oct. 26 after a 6-month shut down. (ABS-CBN News)
