An indigenous activist's murder exposes Boracay's dark side
Killing of activist seen as business interests' warning shot in bid to oust the Atis indigenous tribe from their seafront site on island resort
It is considered one of the world's most beautiful islands, where tourists can frolic on white sands by day and sip cocktails by night in seafront villas.
Boracay inspires the most clichéd of descriptions - "paradise on earth"; "the world's best island". But for the Atis, who claim to be the island's original inhabitants, life is a daily struggle.
We never believed it would come to this ... this is about the [Atis'] land
From a squashed compound of dusty vegetable plots and thatched huts separated from the main road by a flimsy bamboo fence, this indigenous tribe of 200 families is fighting for its right to live and work on the Philippine island. Largely uneducated and desperately poor, the Atis say they have been pushed off the land they have lived on for centuries by the hundreds of hotel chains, bars and businesses cashing in on Boracay's multimillion-dollar opportunities.
Now they also fear for their lives. In February, Atis youth leader and spokesman Dexter Condez, 26, was shot with a submachine gun, while returning home with two others from a meeting about land.
The killer ran off into the dark night. Witnesses identified the gunman as Daniel Celestino, 27, a security guard at the Crown Regency resort. Celestino has been charged with murder, but both he and the resort owner deny any involvement.
"We never believed it would come to this," said Atis chieftain Delsa Justo, 54, a gaunt woman with a serious gaze and pink comb sticking out of her curly hair. "Only one thing is for sure: this is about the land."
After years of being evicted from one end of the island to the other, in 2011 the tribe won a government-issued certificate of ancestral land title on a 2.1-hectare seafront site - prime real estate potentially worth up to US$1,200 per square metre.