TOONTOWN COMES TO BOHOL'S 'NATURE MONUMENT'
SAGBAYAN, BOHOL, January 17, 2005 (STAR) (AFP) — Mother Nature took two million years to grind and blend the Chocolate Hills of Bohol, a spectacular formation among a paddy sea of emerald in the central Philippines.But Jimmy Torrefranca is betting he can build a golf course amidst this natural wonder in no time at all.
Big ideas always inspire the brash mayor of Sagbayan, one of the country’s poorest municipalities nestled among the array of 1,776 mounds and hillocks of calcium bicarbonate, described by the national government as one of its "flagship tourist destinations."
Rising amidst rice fields and coconut groves in six towns in the interior of the central island of Bohol, the grassy hills were once coral reefs that erupted from the sea in a massive geologic shift. Wind and water put on the finishing touches over hundreds of thousands of years.
The grass dies and crisps to a light brown in the dry season, causing the hills to resemble giant chocolate drops. This draws hundreds of thousands of awed visitors to Bohol, a sleepy island of 1.2 million people and three traffic lights.
The hills turned into a "Natural Monument" by presidential order in 1997, guaranteeing their upkeep and conservation.
But Torrefranca said millions of tourist dollars have bypassed Sagbayan, a former den of cattle rustlers that makes do with patches of hard-packed clay roads, a world away from its neighbor Cebu with its big hotels and airport, casinos and fancy cruise ships.
Even as tourist arrivals in Bohol were rising by at least 30 percent annually, to about 300,000 last year, many of Sagbayan’s 18,000 residents remain poor and illiterate.
In 2003, a local investor won a national government permit to bulldoze the top off one hill. The peak now has a restaurant and a children’s park.
Florence has Michaelangelo’s David. Rio has the statue of Jesus Christ towering over the city. The Chocolate Hills viewing deck here has Bugs Bunny, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and various other Toontown figures.
"When we put up these facilities some people sneered, ‘The mayor has gone crazy. Why is he building up there?’" Torrefranca told AFP.
"Now they are grateful because tourists are coming in."
Next up is a hotel with a view, then on to a full 100-hectare (247-acre) golf course that could put the hills to use as the most magnificent of traps or hazards for golfers anywhere in the world.
"I have already talked to the investor and we are going to start the construction of a hotel," Torrefranca said.
Provincial tourism officer Baby Balio said Bohol now has just over 1,000 hotel beds, missing the hundreds of thousands more tourists who make day trips by ferry from nearby Cebu — the country’s No. 2 city — for scuba diving, whale-watching or for a short dip at the beach.
"We are preparing an incentive program to attract investors who would build and give us more rooms," Balio said without elaborating.
No international hotel chain now operates in Bohol.
"I am studying this proposal by a Manila-based group to put up the golf course," Torrefranca also said.
"If that will push through tourism, Bohol would get a boost," said Stephanie Mullins, who runs one of the island’s largest hotels.
However, the hotel manager said she did not see the course being built within 10 to 15 years — "if ever."
The mayor figures the main challenge would be getting the national government to sanction the project, not to mention persuading about 100 landowners to sell.
The Protected Areas Management Board has jurisdiction over the hills, with veto power over any investment requiring physical facilities.
The natural monument proclamation bans "activity of any kind which will alter, mutilate, deface or destroy the hills." A 2003 amendment regulates activity among the privately owned areas "in between hills."
Many Filipinos are sensitive to perceived desecrations of so-called heritage sites. Three years ago, a public outcry forced a construction firm to stop quarrying at the Chocolate Hills, restoring one defaced hill to its original shape.
Speculators are now bidding up property prices in the area, raising the potential cost of the proposed project, Torrefranca said.
Beyond the feeding frenzy, the Sagbayan mayor concedes that getting investors to actually put their money into the poorer parts of Bohol is complicated by communist guerrillas, who extort money from local officials.
Having refused to pay, Torrefranca survived two assassination attempts since 1998, when the rebels firebombed his car.
Reported by: Sol Jose Vanzi
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