KRALENDIJK- In an opinion piece, the former Island Registrar of the Public Entity Bonaire (OLB), Willem Cecilia, these days sees ‘moral decay’ occurring everywhere on the island. 

According to Cecilia, after an inter-island summit between the three BES islands, there is extensive discussion about both the island council and the executive council. Cecilia refers to a commentary by historian Arthur Sealy, who also expresses criticism. Sealy – and with him Cecilia – believe that recent discussions about behavior within both the island parliament and the actions of members of the executive council have negatively impacted the reputation of institutions on the island. 

“We can speak of moral decay when there is a gradual erosion of your ethical principles, values, and norms in your community. This manifests itself in various ways, such as a decrease in trust, a decrease in empathy and compassion, contempt for honesty and integrity, and a lack of accountability,” says Cecilia. 

According to Cecilia, since the new Executive Council took office, various moral principles have been abandoned, such as the pursuit of high-quality tourism, the establishment of the Spatial Development Plan, and the decline of areas important for agriculture. 

“To make tourism flourish, laws and regulations need to be revised and stricter controls need to be implemented, and there needs to be an awareness campaign to stop the illegal dumping of waste in nature. But what happens? It is preferable to openly fight with Selibon and in recent weeks, complete car tires have been dumped in the forest and a garbage dump is sinking into nature, blocking a countryside side road like never before.”

Scepticism

It is noteworthy that instead of support, Cecilia also receives a lot of ridicule on Social Media for his opinion. Willem is thus placed by many in the camp of the former UPB/MPB executive council. The dismissed executives have been very active in recent days. In a true media campaign, they keep pointing out that the executive council formed by PDB, M21, and the Vrolijk faction is not doing its job well. 

Especially at MPB, reduced to a single seat, bitterness seems to prevail. The party itself voted in favor of compensation for the factions in the island council, but now claims that documents were changed without their knowledge. 

In addition, many readers also point out that the unrestrained growth of tourism, including a doubling of the number of hotel rooms, was mainly achieved under the administration of MPB and UPB and can hardly be credited to an executive council sitting for barely 100 days.