A friend was once on the white beach of Calanggaman Island, the sun kissing the horizon at noon, when a foreigner approached him and asked why there was not much infrastructure in this gem. He shrugged, half-irritated, half-embarrassed, because the foreigner was correct. We are sitting on top of a treasure chest of natural wonders, yet we still behave as if we have lost the key.
Our province—Eastern Visayas—is not unfamiliar with grandeur. We have Kalanggaman’s fantasy sandbar, Sohoton’s legendary caves, Limasawa’s historical coastlines, Lake Danao’s mountain embrace, and Canigao’s tranquil charm, all laid out like sacred lines in a forgotten hymn. But while these places bristle with raw, untamed beauty, they lie idle, unexplored, and undermarketed. What we can offer, we don’t have in tow. And that is the tragedy: not that we don’t have it; we don’t seriously take what we have.
I’ve seen it myself. Sun-kissed Cuatro Islas boatmen with the palms of their hands calloused to the bone act as tour guides, mechanics, and lifeguards for a day’s pay of a few hundred pesos. There are no accredited tour programs, no new comfort rooms, and no trained lifeguards or certified cultural guides. Visitors manage on their own, sometimes with the result of disillusionment. We invite visitors to visit, but when they arrive, we’re not prepared to offer them a world-class experience. It’s as though we invite guests to a banquet, then serve them reheated leftovers on broken plates.
We don’t need cement sidewalks or quaint signs. We need vision. A leadership that goes beyond just barangay clean-up efforts or mere beauty pageants. A leadership that can release what we already possess—our islands, our people, our histories—and present them to the world with pride, not with added-on cosmetics. We need to stop waiting for that miracle investor to drop from heaven. We start by educating our young to be narrators of our tradition, by extending sterling and genuine hospitality, and by putting investments in small but enduring systems of sustainability. This is not a race for pursuing Western standards—it’s an exercise of making our standards seen and recognized.
The irony is that we already have the blueprint. See what the other provinces have done—Camiguin, Siargao, Bohol. These are not great wealth areas, but they had vision and persistent drive. Eastern Visayas has been running continuously in feast-or-famine tourism mode: all din fiestas and all quiet the rest of the year. We mix design with promotion and infrastructure with development. We construct roads to the beaches, but do not construct structures to safeguard them. We illuminate boardwalks but permit mangroves to wither in their footsteps. It is nature and faith in decay.
If we don’t intervene, the price is not just losing tourists, but losing ourselves. We educate our offspring on Samar’s caves and Leyte’s history, yet what is the value of learning these if we can’t save and enhance them? Why say pride when we won’t even give a decent toilet within the vicinity of our most-accessed waterfalls? This’s not lost economic opportunity; this’s lost opportunity for dignity. The neglect’s not only material—it’s moral, spiritual, and social.
And no, this is not only the Department of Tourism’s responsibility. It’s in the hands of those who make their budgets in LGUs, in schools that mold young minds, and in the media that decide what to highlight. It’s in our customs—how we greet guests, how we treat garbage, how we respect the sanctity of our domains. The world is watching. But most importantly, we are watching ourselves. All that plastic wrap along the beach, all that wild touring, all that lost comfort rooms are small, quiet concessions that we believe our paradise is not worth fighting for.
If we do need to start somewhere, let it be with respect—not the formal sort that resides in opening benedictions and ribbon cuttings, but the sort that appears in the unglamorous, no-frills effort of tending, staying current, and loving our own. We do not have to be another Boracay or Palawan—we just have to be the best Eastern Visayas has to give. The world will imitate if we first learn to value the beauty that already lies at our feet.
