If the Province of Palawan has been considered the nature sanctuary of the world and continues to amaze tourists with its scenic wonders, project coordinator Meliez Zapanta of the Palawan Network of NGOs Inc. (PNNI) says it is “because there are people and communities that keep it that way.” Against the trend of commercial tourism, Zapanta notes how communities are usually overlooked in the process of development, and this is the reason her organization ventures into a tourism enterprise that “not only showcases the physical beauty of Puerto Princesa, but also empowers communities and recognizes their roles in the preservation the country’s last ecological frontier.”

As PEF’s Partnerships and Access Center (PAC) for Palawan, PNNI developed various programs aimed at sustaining poverty reduction and community empowerment for the poor communities of the Province of Palawan, the most recent of which is the P1-million Pasyar Developmental Tourism Project.

Pasyar, named after the local word that means “to travel leisurely,” focuses on facilitating community development via ecotourism, as it seeks to provide market option for tourists looking for alternative forms of tourism while building capacities of local communities to become active players in Palawan’s tourism industry. It, thus, then helps “promote and maintain (the) cultural integrity of the province.”

“We want tourists to realize that attractive tourism does not necessarily entail destructing the environment,” says Ma. Cleofe Bernardino, PNNI executive director. “We call it developmental tourism because it’s involving people’s participation in their own development through the way they define it, and not through the ‘prescription’ of others.”

Through the Pasyar project, at least six people’s organizations (POs) have already been organized and strengthened and are now ready to showcase their indigenous tourism attractions. They are the Honda Bay Boat Owners Association Inc. (HOBBAI) mainly from Barangay Sta. Lourdes; Bacungan Coastal Development Resident Association Inc. (BCDRAI) of Barangay Bacungan; Puntod Ilis Marine Sanctuary Management Board of Barangay Babuyan; Mangrove Paddle Tour Association of Barangay Cabayugan; Ugong Rock Community Tour Guide Association of Tagabinet; and the Samahan ng Maliliit na Mangingisda (Association of Small-scale Fishermen) of Barangay Buenavista. More organizing work for other POs is in the pipeline.

Among others, the project wants to showcase such destinations as Puntod Ilis Marine Sanctuary (Babuyan), San Carlos Mangrove in (Bacungan), Honday Bay, Ulugay Bay, Manyukos tors transporting tourists around Honday Bay, Ulugay Bay, Manyukos Island Marine Sanctuary (Barangay Buenavista), and Ugong Rock Spelunking Summit View Park (Barangay Tagabinet).

the total of 44 members of HOBBAI are now the ones touring guests using some 62 boats operating daily by rotation. PNNI is providing loan assistance to its marginalized members through the project, mainly in Honda Bay, host to Palawan’s several fishing villages, white beaches and rainforests, and is a favorable destination of adventurers and nature lovers.

MORE INCOME FOR LOCALS
Instead of commercial tour operators transporting tourists around Honda Bay, the total of 44 members of HOBBAI are now the ones touring guests using some 62 boats operating daily by rotation. PNNI is providing loan assistance to its marginalized members through the project, mainly in Honda Bay, host to Palawan’s several fishing villages, white beaches and rainforests, and is a favorable destination of adventurers and nature lovers.

“Whereas before, our only source of livelihood was fishing, we now have more income as we have been tapped in the local tourism,” says Jessie Unico, member of HOBBAI. “There are no better local guides for tourists than locals themselves.”

Marlon Tamsi, a former community organizer of PNNI’s partner organization, Environmental Legal Assistance Center (ELAC), which helped organize HOBBAI, recalls how tourism services around Honda Bay used to be monopolized by rich families from Barangay Sta. Lourdes. “Today, it is great to see ordinary residents gaining access and earning from the Honda Bay tourism,” he says, adding that this opportunity helped turn many illegal fishermen into legitimate service providers through their motorized boats.

Community participation has been more apparent in the residents’ involvement in conceptualizing and organizing travel tours. In Barangay Bacungan, BCDRAI members went through some strategic planning facilitated by PNNI to decide on “what to market” from their mangrove-rich community. BCDRAI is on a Community-Based Forest Management Agreement (CBFMA) with the DENR to rehabilitate 378 hectares of mangrove areas, but the need for immediate economic gains prompted locals to resort to ecotourism. The community planning has resulted in members suggesting a number of packages, such as mangrove paddle boating where guests will explore the local mangroves using a paddled boat tour through the assistance of the PO members as boatmen. BCDRAI has also proposed, and PNNI has agreed to provide assistance, to set up a floating house/restaurant that will serve as reception area for guests before they start their mangrove cruise. Yet another proposed tourist activities in the area to be supported by Pasyar are firefly watching, and mangrove boardwalk.

“The way we facilitate the community involvement in ecotourism is to focus and develop their resource management skills in proposing tourism activities,” Tamsi, who is also a HOBBAI board member, says.
Tourist’s education is among those that developmental tourism sells best. In the Bacungan experience, it was attested by Julie Simpson, a British-Filipino tourist who recently visited the area through the Pasyar tour services. “Learning how a community thrives, and how locals protect their land from intruders in the case of Bacungan, is such an interesting experience,” she says. “They truly demonstrate a genuine sensitivity to the environment.”

Simpson says Filipinos must learn that a number of foreign interests are not interested in high-rise buildings and other technological advancements as destinations but are instead keen in seeing how nature is preserved. The sites of Pasyar, she notes, are perfect examples of this kind of tourism.

TARGETED SHARE IN THE MARKET
In 2007 alone, the Puerto Princesa City tourism office disclosed that tourist arrivals increased by 19.07% compared to 2006 figures (176,347 arrivals in 2007, or 28,241 higher than the previous year). Of these numbers, PNNI is aiming to get 8% of the total tourist arrivals on the first year of operation (2008), and 2% increase on the succeeding years. Initially, Pasyar offered three major tours: Day Tours for those who want to explore the city; Pasyal Bayan-Bayan (four days/three nights or three days/ two nights) covering travels around the city and out to the rural barangays where development projects are being initiated; and Pasyal Palawan, covering five to seven days of travel to the adjacent municipalities outside Puerto Princesa City. Pasyar later improved the packaging of tour products by customizing the type of tours based on the needs of the guests. The Pasyar project, with a business center at the heart of the city, now also runs a souvenir shop as additional source of income.

To view Pasyar’s complete list of tour packages, visit http://pasyarpalawan.tripod.com/pack.html.