City condo now houses poor students from brgys.

Monday, September 26, 2011

FOR several years after it was built in 1996, the Cebu City Condominium was the subject of numerous state auditor reports for alleged irregularities in its construction and the failure of the City Government to put it to proper use.

City Hall has not been using the building as a housing facility for the poor, as it was originally intended when it took out a P28-million loan to construct the condominium, state auditors said after a review of the City’s transactions and finances in 2009. 

Have something to report? Tell us in text, photos or videos.

But the Commission on Audit’s (COA) findings no longer matter to some 600 college students from the city’s mountain barangays who are grateful to benefit from the project.

The City-owned condominium along N. Bacalso Ave. is now home to 576 students during school days.

For a monthly rent of P350, which includes water and electricity, the facility eases the burden of the students’ parents, most of whom are farmers in the mountain villages.

Charina Alcantara, 16, said that without the condominium, she would not be able to go to the Asian College of Technology, where she is a first year student taking hospitality management classes.

“My parents just tend a small plot, there’s no way they can afford to pay the usual P1,000 lodging fee in private boarding houses, or the fare I would have to pay if I go home every day,” Alcantara said in Cebuano.

He lives in the mountain village of Lusaran, a two-hour drive from the city proper. A motorcycle ride from Barangay Talamban to Lusaran will cost her P100, and another P100 to go back.

Alcantara said she’s lucky to have a small bed with seven other occupants of a unit in the condo.

“It’s not only cheap, it also helps us save on fare because it’s only a walking distance from school,” she told Sun.Star Cebu.

Ryan Leyson, 18, will also have to pay the P200 motorcycle fare if he goes home to Barangay Adlaon every day.

From the entrance of the condominium, he can already touch the wall of his school, so he gets to save on jeepney fare. He is also rarely late for class.

The condominium was originally built as a housing facility for the urban poor, but it lay idle from 2004 to 2009 after the City asked its urban poor occupants to leave for failing to meet the requirements set for beneficiaries.

In 2009, City Hall, through a city ordinance, converted the five-story building into a dormitory for students who come from the mountain barangays. 

Leyson and Alcantara will be two of the close to 600 students who might have to find another place to live in if the Division for the Welfare of the Urban Poor’s (DWUP) proposal to again use the building as a housing facility for urban poor families pushes through.

DWUP Chief Collen Rosell said he has already discussed the proposal with Mayor Michael Rama, but there is no definite plan yet.

“We’re looking at the property as something that can address the housing demand of the urban poor sector. I think the condo properly belongs to DWUP and should be turned over to DWUP. We will also assess how we can help the students, and evaluate the extent of their need,” he said.

Dante Tabucal, the custodian of the condominium, said the City Government should continue to operate the condominium as a lodging facility for students from the mountain barangays because they are also from poor families.

The condominium earns some P200,000 a month from rent, with operational expenses amounting to some P50,000 for water and electricity, among other expenses.

Although the income of the City from the rent is not much, the help they extend to the students and their parents cannot be quantified, Tabucal said.

“This is already a big help to their parents. If DWUP’s plan pushes through, where would the students go?” he said.