600-hectare land available in Lumbia

Monday, January 23, 2012

MISAMIS Oriental Governor Oscar Moreno has urged Cagayan de Oro Mayor Vicente Emano to work on the 600-hectare public land in Barangay Lumbia as permanent relocation site for victims of Tropical Storm Sendong.

Citing the huge area, Moreno said this cannot only accommodate “Sendong” victims but also other residents who need to be relocated.

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“If he won’t work for this at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and somebody from the National Government offers me to take over, then I will do it. But I don’t want to work on this because it is not under my jurisdiction,” he said.

Moreno said that according to the DENR, the Integrated Social Forestry (ISF) of the 600-hectare land has already expired, making it “available” for residential use.

However, he said if the City Government plans to use it, it still has to go through a “process”.

He said he expected for the DENR to mention the land to Vice President Jejomar Binay during a summit held two weeks ago in Cagayan de Oro.

“But the local government cannot expect DENR from recommending the use of that land for relocation site because it runs counter to its mandate, which is environmental protection. That initiative must come from somebody else,” he said.

Moreno added that being the “representative” of the “Sendong” victims, the City Government must take the initiative for the 600-hectare land as relocation site.

“What happened was that Dongkoy (Emano) lied that there was no available land during the visit of President Benigno Aquino last December 20. He wanted to deceive even the National Government. It’s good that the President did not buy his plan, that’s why the Calaanan resettlement area came out. In short, there are available land but he (Emano) just lied,” Moreno said.

For his part, Emano just laughed off Moreno’s idea of turning the Lumbia land into a relocation site.

He, however, did not comment further.

But Emano disclosed Moreno called up Binay’s office and offered for the transfer of “Sendong” victims to Laguindingan.

“I was surprised when I learned about this because some even find it hard to accept the Calaanan relocation, how much more in Laguindingan. Public servants have become a laughing stock, all because of politics,” Emano said.

He said Laguindingan is “several distance away” from Cagayan de Oro and is far from schools and offices of the affected residents, giving them inconvenience.

“For him, it doesn’t matter if the people would suffer inconvenience as long as his political plot is followed because he wants to get the credit. All this is because of politics,” Emano said.

Related to this, Emano said he would provide more tents at the Tent City in Sitio Calaanan, Barangay Canitoan, to accommodate the remaining flood victims who are temporarily staying at public schools.

This came about after school officials requested the City Government to relocate the evacuees, citing the school premises no longer provide convenience to students.

Emano said he already requested the Rotary Club and the Department of Social Welfare and Development to provide at least 240 more tents.

“As soon as the tents will be installed, those inside public schools will immediately be relocated,” he said.

Emano said he already checked the condition of evacuees at the Provincial Capitol grounds and in Carmen and assured them they will be included in the list of those who will be relocated.

“For the meantime, I am requesting the evacuees to be patient. All of them will be relocated,” he said.

Aquino is set to inaugurate the initial four pre-fabricated houses at the relocation site in Sitio Calaanan on January 25.

Emano said the four initial houses will be raffled off to the flood victims who are already staying at the Tent City.