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During the San Jose port Spanish colonial period, the human heart-shaped emerald isle bordered with fine, ivory beaches in the southernmost tip of Tablas Island in Romblon was called Isla de Carabao because during that time it was grazing land for carabaos and cattle.

Now called the town of San Jose, the 29 square-kilometer big island that is divided into five villages retained it sobriquet, Carabao Island. The waters that surround it are the Sibuyan Sea on its eastern coast and Tablas Strait on its western side.

Its downside is that being geographically isolated from the rest of Romblon,san Jose is one of the most depressed municipalities of the island province famous for its world-class marble. Its upside though is, due to its distance from the rest of Romblon, Carabao Island is still inits pristine condition, with powdery, white sand beaches comparable to that of Boracay’s famous west coast.

Its advantage over its world-renowned island neighbor though, is that Carabao Island’s talc-fine sandy beaches are 4.3-km. long on its east coast vis-à-vis 3.5 kilometers in the island “paradise” of Boracay, plus another 2.5-km. of the fine, white stuff on the west side of San Jose aka Carabao Island, whose fine terrain is characterized by lowlands in the northern and eastern sections, and by rolling hills in the central and southern part of the islands. What’s more it is three separated by a 3-km channel south of Carabao.

“I conceptualized an international airport at Carabao Islandd as an alternative to the small Caticlan Airport in the town of Malay in Aklan way back in 1989, but started negotiating for the land acquisition totaling 120 hectares only in 2004,” says Steve Tajanlangit, one of the pioneer resort hotel developers in Boracay Terraces Hotel on the northern end of White Beach.

“The ideal place to develop an international airport to expand the Boracay corridor is at Carabao island,which was mentioned by GMA in her SONA in 2006, as one of her major airport projects, together with Busuanga and San Vicente in Northern Palawan, because Carabao is located between Boracay and Tablas Island in Romblon, which has its own attractions, like a big lagoon, which can be developed into a yacht marina,” explains the Ilonggo tourism visionary who, as early as 1979, saw Boracay as a major tourist destination in the near future when small groups of backpackers descended on the pristine island whose grain of white sand is a mere 500 microns in size, making its 3.5-km white beachcomfortably cool even during high noon.

“From Carabao, a group of beautiful islands in Antique is just 30 minutes away, and beyond them, you’ll reach another new tourist destination, Coron in Northern Palawan.”

The envisioned P5-billion Carabao Island International Airport, with a runway 3.7-km. is long, enough to accommodate wide-bodied jetliners like the A-330. When finished in 2012, it will be much bigger than the present Iloilo airport-already considered the biggest in the Visayas, with the exception of the Mactan Cebu International Airport. The flight from Manila to Carabao Island will only be 40 minutes by plane, and 30 minutes from Cebu.

“Right now, Caticlan airport’s existing runway is only 900 meters, not long enough for even a 72-seater turboprop ATR passenger plane used by Cebu Pacific in its missionary routes,” says the vice chairman of the Boracay Property Holdings, Inc., the main proponent of the Carabao airport project.” Even if you level the hill (blocking the runway’s northeastern tip), you can only have an additional 800 meters or a total of 1.6-km,” points out Tajanlangit.” But, an international airport needs a 3.5-km runway.

“That’s why Carabao is an ideal alternative, considering that the area being considered for an airport development is flat,” avers the swarthy real estate developer. “We can promise, due to its favorable terrain, that we can have an airport by 2012, which comprises the P3-billion phase one, which includes the runway, tarmac and passenger terminal that can accommodate 2 million passengers a year,” he continues. “then, we implement the P2-billion phase 2, that is to expand the terminal further as the need arises.”

Considering that Caticlan can only accommodate 2,000 passengers daily, it can only fill in 1,000 hotel rooms (at twin sharing) in the island. But, Boracay at present has more than 7,000 rooms and this will balloon, with the continous expansion of resort hotels in the island, to 10,000!

“In 2012, we can bring in big planes to Carabao loaded with tourist from China, Korea, Japan, even people from Hongkong, who can have a nice weekend in Boracay,” says tajanlangit. “More tourists will come if we already have Carabao airport because at present, if a foreign tourist is going to Boracay, it’s a big hassle for him to fly in to NAIA then transfer to the Domestic Airport, then fly to kalibo, take a 1-1/2-hour bus trip to Caticlan, then a 15-minute ferry boat transfer before reaching boracay, wasting almost a day of unnecessary travel.

“When the Carabao airport is finished in 2012, we can pump up economic activities not only in Boracay, but also in Aklan, romblon, where Carabao is, Antique, southern Mindoro Oriental, and even Marinduque,” state Tajanlangit, who also operates the 7107 Islands Cruise liner that plies the so-called ‘tourism golden triangle’-that starts from Batangas City to Coron in Busuanga and on to Boracay, and vise versa.

“We can now compete with other major tourist destinations in Southeast Asia like Phuket in Thailand and Bali in Indonesia; which can accommodate one million tourists while we are just dependent on Boracay,” concludes the Ilonggo tourism expert. “So, how can we attract 12 or 15 milllion tourist a year, the Carabao airport when it’s finished will attract that much visitors due to direct flights from their respective countries to our tropical paradise, and beyond.”

The multibillion-peso Carabao International Airport project will be modern and state-of-the-arts as envisioned by its developers. It will be designed by the same company that designed some of the best airports in the world. Fifteen hectares of  the land will be devoted for terminal facilities alone. A component infrastructure of the Carabao airport is a modern port that will serve twin-hulled catamarans and other big, fast craft that will ferry tourists and from Boracay.

“Vietnam is hitting 5 million a year, while we could barely get 3 million,” explains director Reynaldo dela Rosa of the Boracay-based Eminent Persons Group (EPG), a government agency under the Office of the President tasked to oversee the sustainable development of tourism in the island and has the rank of undersecretary in the Department of tourism (DOJ). “With the right tourism master plan for Carabao Island, we can compete with any destination in the region because our beaches here are better than those in Bali.”

So, in 2012, the heart-shaped Carabao Island will start throbbing to give life to the still slumbering and undiscovered scenic islands with alabaster beaches in Northern Panay, Southern Mindoro, Romblon, and northern Palawan, which will complement tourist arrivals in Boracay, the philippines’ diamond in its crown jewels of island tourist destinations. – Randy V. Urlanda – Philippine Panorama – Nov 7 Edition