MANILA (AFP) - Philippine authorities may ban sex on the world-famous beaches of Boracay island after a television crew filmed two naked couples making out in public on New Year's Day, the local mayor said Thursday.

The clip showed one pair apparently having sex on the beach and the other locked in a passionate kiss in the water, with the woman's bare breasts clearly shown above the waterline.

The ABS-CBN television network said it filmed the apparently Western couples at 2:00 am on New Year's Day following a large beachside party on Boracay to usher in 2011.

"We're thinking of a 'no sex on the beach' (rule) so the other tourists would not be scandalised," John Yap, mayor of Malay town that has jurisdiction over Boracay, told ABS-CBN in an interview posted on its website this week.

Yap said authorities were aware of the sensitivities of the devoutly Roman Catholic nation.

"It's an isolated case and quite difficult to control but, if police had seen them, they would have been arrested for public scandal," he said.

In a brief phone call with AFP on Thursday, Yap confirmed the quotes.

Filipina film star and talk show television host Ruffa Gutierrez, who said she was vacationing with her two young children at Boracay over the New Year, expressed disgust at the holiday makers' over-exuberance.

"I don't want my children to be doing those things (public sex acts) one day," she told ABS-CBN.

"For me, it's just not right."

Boracay draws about 650,000 tourists every year, or about 22 percent of the country's total visitor traffic, according to tourist ministry data.