NEWSFLASH

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BOHOL ISLANDS SHIPPED TO CEBU RESORTS

Manila, Oct. 15, 1997 - The Committee in Environment and Natural Resources of the House of Representatives will conduct on-the-spot hearings in Cebu to find out what happened to two Bohol islands which have disappeared from the map.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau has tested 12 big resorts in Mactan island and Metro Cebu and determined that the white sand on their beach fronts have the same characteristics as, and could have been quarried from, the missing islands off the coast of Clarin town in Bohol.

Large-scale quarrying for white sand on the two islands has left nothing but water where the white sandbars used to be.

Most of the resorts in Cebu buy white sand to spruce up their beaches. Sand in Bohol is finer and whiter than those found elsewhere, but damage caused to the environment has prompted the government to impose a total ban on white sand quarrying in Bohol.

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