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Fighting for their land: on Philippines’ Boracay island, indigenous Ati tribe faces eviction threat
- Boracay’s indigenous Ati people have been pushed to the margins and are fighting to retain agricultural land developers say is better used for tourism
- Despite obstacles including the cancellation of land titles, the Ati say are undeterred as they seek to preserve their community and way of life
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For years, international travel magazines have dubbed the Philippines’ Boracay as one of the world’s best island getaways, its powdery white beaches regularly attracting hordes of travellers. Tourism has for decades provided jobs and livelihoods for thousands of Filipinos living on the island.
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Largely left out of this prosperity, however, are Boracay’s indigenous Ati people, who have been engaged in a protracted legal battle over land that had already been granted to them by the government.
The Ati are the original inhabitants of Boracay, but have been pushed to the margins as the island gained fame. Many have been rendered homeless, with some forced to survive on welfare and begging on the beaches.
In November 2018, then president Rodrigo Duterte gave the Ati hope when, as part of a land reform programme, they were granted land titles to 3.2 hectares (7.9 acres) – about 1 per cent of the island’s roughly 1,000 hectares. The four titles, called Certificates of Land Ownership Awards (CLOAs), were given to the collective ownership of the Boracay Ati Tribal Organisation.
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Duterte put Boracay under the land reform programme when he closed it for six months in 2018 to clean up the island from pollution caused by overtourism.
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