City Hall reviews use of Sugbu Homes lots

Monday, July 18, 2011

THE Cebu City Government is reassessing the Sugbu Homes in Barangay Lahug after it found out that the housing project doesn’t serve its purpose.

During the term of then mayor Alvin Garcia, the City acquired 10.5 hectares of land worth P39.5 million for homeless and deserving City Hall employees in a program to provide the employees with affordable and decent housing.

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A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was entered into and signed by Garcia and Cebu City Hall Homeowners’ Association, Inc (CCHHAI), represented by its president Engr. Victor Tiu, on July 29, 1998.

In the MOA, the 570 members of CCHHAI were authorized to occupy the six titled lots of Sugbu Homes for P800 per square meter.

But Leonardo Rabaca, administrative aide of the Division for the Welfare of the Urban Poor (DWUP), said only 40 members of CCHHAI constructed houses in Sugbu Homes and most of them have yet to pay the amortization in full.

In the MOA, the beneficiaries are supposed to pay directly to City Hall within 120 equal monthly installments but the payments were stopped for some reasons.

Rabaca said most of the people living in the area today are informal settlers who also formed their own associations.

This includes 1321 Homeowners’ Association, Veterans Homeowners’ Association, God’s Faith Foundation and Windy Hills Homeowners Association.

Rabaca said these associations have 400 members occupying the City-owned lots intended for City Hall employees.

DWUP Chief Collin Rosell said he was asked by Mayor Michael Rama to work on the problem.

Rosell said they already met with the occupants, who promised to submit papers to prove they have rights to be in Sugbu Homes.

But until last week, the DWUP chief said only a few of them have submitted their documents to his office.

“Most of them cannot submit any paper because the area is only for City Hall employees. Now, you can see doctors, teachers, policemen and others living there,” Rosell said.

The DWUP chief said he will submit suggestions to Rama soon.

Rosell said the City can recover the lots occupied by the informal settlers, recover the lots from the beneficiaries who failed to construct their houses, and give these to other homeless and landless City Hall employees.

The MOA said that after the period expires and the beneficiaries still haven’t paid, their contract with the association or with the City is rescinded.

It said all payments made by the beneficiaries shall be forfeited and the land shall be repossessed by the City Government.

Rosell said, though, it’s up to the mayor if the informal settlers in Sugbu Homes will be accommodated after their reassessment.

Rama said he will just wait for the written recommendation of Rosell so he can study it.

Rama said he has only one mission for the DWUP chief in Sugbu Homes and this is to “correct but not to complicate” the issue.

He said the housing project for City Hall employees becomes a “free- for-all” due to some informal undertakings made by the previous administration.

Garcia suggested to the present administration to develop the property so the really deserving beneficiaries can avail themselves of the housing project.

Garcia said that during his term, he sent a bulldozer to the site for road networking and to level the hill until he left City Hall in 2001.

He said Sugbu Homes is a good project and it should be continued by Rama.

Rama said roads should be developed in the area to make it more enticing for the beneficiaries to build their homes there.