Thursday, March 01, 2007 Town mayors shut doors to Capitol lot occupants’ ‘suroy’
CEBU City residents who are going with their “suroy-suroy” to convince local government units of their stand that they stay in Province-owned lots covered by Ordinance 93-1 may be in for disappointment.
Town mayors yesterday pledged support for whatever Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia decides to do with the properties that were set aside for a social housing under the ordinance.
Daanbantayan Mayor Ma. Luisa Loot said Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña should just respect the Capitol, which owns the lots.
Transfer
Argao Mayor Wilfredo Caminero said the occupants should just transfer residence to the towns and not insist on living in a city where there is no space.
Alcantara Mayor Benjamin Lobitaña, for his part, said he placed streamers in the municipality supporting the governor’s decision so the occupants will not dare approach them.
Capitol has decided to negotiate individually with close to 3,000 families in 11 Cebu City barangays after the residents failed to pay for the properties.
The governor also dropped the lot swap deal with the City Government after the City Council issued a moratorium on development projects in the Banilad area, which affected Capitol’s P2-billion Ciudad project.
Earlier, the towns of Aloguinsan, Poro, Carcar and Talisay City and some other local councils passed a resolution calling for a value-for-value exchange.
Vice Gov. Gregorio Sanchez’s proposal on what to do with the lots covered by Ordinance 93-1 still has to be studied carefully by the newly created review committee, whose first agenda is to do an inventory of the occupants and their status.
Sanchez said the problem in Barangay Luz can be addressed by putting up a building for residents who have already paid for their lots and using the remaining land for commercial purposes.
Some 2,725 occupants have not fully paid or even started paying for the lots before the deadline lapsed in September 2004.
Meanwhile, Capitol consultant on information and management Pablo John Garcia said they never said the speculation that Mayor Osmeña will sell the Luz lots to a private developer made any sense in the first place.
Suspicions
“We just said the suspicions are there, and his recent series of actions tend to fuel those suspicions,” said Pablo John.
Also, he said the police offices may have thought the moratorium on the eviction notices includes them, but it is only for those covered by Ordinance 93-1.
The review committee has yet to meet. Pablo John, a member of the committee, said their first order of business is “a real, honest to goodness inventory of occupants and their status.”
After the inventory, which may take two weeks, then the Capitol may “individually” deal with the occupants. (JPM)
