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Boracay Island, Aklan, Philippines ? Aklan Representative Florencio Miraflores will push through with his controversial bill declaring 60 percent of lands in Boracay as public domain and open for disposition.
As he turned down calls of some lot occupants and resort owners here to recall House Bill 1109, the proposed measure split resort and property owners here over their rights and the procedure to have their lots titled.
Miraflores said he would be open to amendments to HB 1109 declaring certain parcels of the public domain within Boracay Island, Malay, Aklan as agricultural land open to disposition.
But he denied that the bill would be ?confiscatory" as claimed by opponents.
"I will push through. But if they can offer me a better version of the bill, I will accept it," Miraflores told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on the sidelines of a dialogue with property and resort owners here on Saturday.
The bill, co-authored by Negros Occidental Representative Ignacio "Iggy" Arroyo, categorizes 626.59 hectares of the 1,006-hectare island as public domain.
Another 337.68 hectares will be categorized as forestland or protected zones while the remaining areas are buffer zones and easements.
The bill had been transmitted to the Senate.
A group of resort owners and land occupants are claiming that they will lose the lot they that have been occupying for years if the bill is passed.
But Miraflores said the bill isn?t confiscatory and will allow land occupants to have their lots titled through free land patents. /Inquirer
