Iloilo City (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN) - "No sex please, we're Filipinos" could just be the slogan the Department of Tourism is looking for to promote the country overseas. But then again, it may not work.
This after stakeholders on Boracay on Thursday (January 6) maintained that the popular island resort remained wholesome despite television footage showing two couples having sex on the beach and in the water on New Year's Day.
Loubelle Cann, president of Boracay Foundation Inc. (BFI), a group of business owners on the island, said the couples seen on video taken by television network ABS-CBN on Jan. 1 "could have been carried away due to intoxication amid the revelry."
Family-oriented
"We do not encourage or even tolerate these acts in public. But this does not happen every day anywhere on the island. Boracay is a family-oriented destination," Cann told the Inquirer in a telephone interview.
"These are private acts and we would, of course, prefer that they remain as such," she added.
The clip showed one pair apparently having sex on the beach while the other was locked in a passionate kiss in the water, with the woman's bare breasts clearly showing above the waterline.
Agence France-Presse quoted ABS-CBN as saying it filmed the apparently Western couples at 2 a.m. on New Year's Day following a large beach party to usher in 2011.
Fr. Magloire Placer, Boracay parish priest, said sex in public was "unacceptable," not only to the religious sector, but also to the community.
Local sensibilities
"While we respect the culture of foreign tourists, we also would like to safeguard and protect local sensibilities and culture," Placer said in a separate phone interview.
Mayor John Yap of Malay town in Aklan province, which includes Boracay, told ABS-CBN the local government might impose a ban on sex on the beach.
"We're thinking of a 'no sex on the beach (rule)' so that other tourists would not be scandalized," Yap said.
He said the authorities were aware of sensitivities in the devoutly Roman Catholic nation.
"It's an isolated case and quite difficult to control, but if the police had seen them they would have been arrested for public scandal," he said.
But Malay councilor Rowen Aguirre, chair of the municipal council's committee on rules and ordinances, said he did not see any need for a local ordinance banning sex on the beach.
"This is already covered by our national laws governing public scandal and it is up to our law enforcers to implement," said Aguirre, a long-time resident of the island.
Boracay draws about 650,000 tourists a year, or about 22 percent of the country's total visitor traffic, according to tourism department data.
"No Sex Please, We're British" is a comedic play that ran for 10 years on London's West End and for only 16 days on Broadway in New York in the 1970s.
It tells what happened after the wife of an assistant bank manager ordered Scandinavian glassware by mail but received pornography instead.
