Kaban Hotel and Casino opened at Station 0 in Barangay Yapak, Malay, Aklan, on 16 September 2026. The grand opening ran on 11 October. The building holds 88 rooms and a 2,000 sq m gaming floor licensed by PAGCOR. It is the first hotel-casino on the island.
What Golden TW built
The six-storey hotel sits inside a 23-hectare tourism and entertainment development. Golden TW Realty and Development Corp is the developer. Its president and chief executive, Kevin Wong, put the investment at about P3 billion. The funding mixes equity with a loan from Philippine Business Bank.
Golden TW said the project will generate nearly 1,200 jobs across the hotel, the casino, the retail outlets and the mall. About 40 percent of the current workforce comes from Aklan. Boracay Central, the adjoining shopping complex, opens in the first quarter of 2027 on its own leasing page.
The property signed two Manila restaurant brands for the site. Chung Dam serves Korean food and Umi Matsu serves Japanese food. Lamii is the all-day dining room.
Boracay recorded about 2.16 million visitors in 2025, against 2.08 million in 2024.
The Diocese of Kalibo answers
Bishop Cyril Villareal of the Diocese of Kalibo issued a pastoral statement on 4 October. The statement opposes the casino and the gambling it brings.
“Boracay does not need gambling and casinos to prosper. Its beauty, its culture, its hospitality, and its natural gifts are already treasures that can support a vibrant and sustainable tourism industry,” Villareal said.
The statement put the case in development terms. “Economic development is important, but development must always remain at the service of the human person,” it read. “Profit cannot be the sole measure of progress.”
Villareal asked the Aklan provincial government and the Malay municipal government to put public welfare first. He asked families to protect their resources. He asked parishes to support people already struggling with gambling.
The statement cites paragraph 2413 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. That paragraph holds games of chance morally unacceptable when they deprive a person of what is necessary for his or her own needs or for the needs of others.
Forestland and flying foxes
Cris Cahilig, co-founder and spokesperson of Natives of Boracay and Business Stakeholders, said the 23-hectare development sits in the middle of a declared forestland area. She said a proposed critical habitat for flying foxes falls inside the property. The Boracay Action Plan identified that habitat during the 2018 rehabilitation.
Cahilig said the casino could set a precedent for more casinos on the island.
No environment department document and no Boracay Inter-Agency Task Force record was reachable for this report. No independent source read here confirms the forestland classification or the habitat boundary. The claim stands as the group's position.
The moratorium record
TTG Asia reported that the local government lifted a 15-year moratorium on casinos without public consultation to accommodate Kaban. The moratorium itself is on the record. The Sangguniang Bayan of Malay declared a 15-year ban on endorsements for casino and gaming operations in Boracay and mainland Malay in 2017.
In August 2021, Malacañang announced that President Rodrigo Duterte had allowed a casino to operate in Boracay. The announcement followed his ending of a three-year ban on new casino licences. In 2018 the government issued a cease and desist order against the casino operating at Movenpick Boracay, and PAGCOR suspended the licence of Galaxy Entertainment Group.
This desk found no resolution that lifts the 2017 ban. The lifting claim stands on the trade title's reporting alone.
What the island is left with
An 88-room hotel, a gaming floor licensed by the national regulator, a mall due in the first quarter of 2027, and a diocese that has put its objection in writing.
The forestland question needs an agency answer. The moratorium needs a paper trail.