It took a social media post by popular singer Celeste Legaspi, who fell ill after vacationing in El Nido, to spur the provincial board this week into launching another inquiry into the town’s persistent sewage management and water contamination issues.
For years, El Nido has grappled with the problem of fecal contamination of its water sources and beaches. Untreated human and household waste, along with discharges from commercial and tourism establishments, seep into the groundwater and pollute its coastal areas. Negative visitor reviews and complaints of getting sick have become common on social media.
In 2018, then-President Rodrigo Duterte angrily denounced Boracay as a “cesspool” and ordered its six-month closure to address similar issues. Illegal sewer pipes were removed, sewage treatment plants were established, and only environmentally compliant businesses were allowed to reopen. As a result, Boracay began transitioning from a mass tourism model to a more sustainable framework.
El Nido, facing a similar threat of closure by the national government, voluntarily pushed its own reforms at that time. Establishments violating easement zones were dismantled. A sewage treatment plant in Barangay Villa Libertad began operations to redirect waste previously flowing into the sea. However, these and other measures appear to have fallen short. Unlike Boracay, which reported improvements in its water quality, El Nido continues to struggle with polluted waters.
The Environmental Management Bureau’s (EMB) monitoring of the town’s water quality from 2019 to 2024 consistently revealed dangerous levels of E. coli on most of El Nido’s beaches, with no significant improvement despite rising tourist arrivals after the pandemic. Strangely, the EMB’s water quality dataset from 2019 to the present has been removed from its website without explanation. The absence of empirical data to guide policymaking in El Nido must be addressed by the provincial government. The board should investigate who ordered the EMB datasets removed and why.
El Nido’s pollution problem now surpasses the scale of Boracay’s pre-closure crisis, yet the government’s response has remained lacking. The provincial board’s inquiry may be a late response, driven more by public pressure than proactive resolve.
It took a celebrity’s complaint to prompt action—but it is better than continuing to bury our heads in the sand.
