Saturday, July 07, 2007 From landmark to ‘sunken park’
A POSSIBLE solution to the flooding in downtown Cebu City would be for City Hall to take over the Citicenter Commercial Complex in Barangay Kamagayan and make it a sunken park, Mayor Tomas Osmeña said.
He added that the complex would serve as a rainwater catchment so the Colon area would not get too flooded when it rains.
Built in 1983, the Citicenter since its closure has served as a home to, among others, squatters, pimps, commercial sex workers, drug addicts, pushers and thieves.
On Dec. 12, 2003, the City auctioned off the property after owners failed to settle their tax obligations, said City Treasurer Tessie Camarillo.
But nobody showed any interest in the property and the redemption period expired last June 6.
This makes the City the new owner of the property, and Camarillo said the City Government is consolidating its ownership.
Osmeña raised the plan for the Citicenter when reporters sought his comment on the flooding problem even in the uptown area.
He said that when there is no rain, the area would serve as park or open space where children could play.
He refused the suggestion to use the space as a relocation site, saying Kamagayan is too congested now.
Turning Citicenter into a park, he said, would also address the peace and order problem in the area, as demolishing the structure would eliminate the illegal activities there.
Last month, the mayor also discussed the idea of a sunken highway that would turn into a river during rainy days.
He plans to build this from the South Road Properties (SRP) to the Alta Vista Golf and Country Club in Barangay Poblacion Pardo.
The mayor wants the road to be an “offer the Aznars could not refuse” because the project will help the family bring in customers to the golf and country club as well as the Sta. Lucia Realty’s high-end residential units.
In exchange for the road, the City will buy a 100-hectare property of the Aznars at the foot of the golf course that the mayor would establish as a “new barangay.”
Poblacion Pardo Barangay Captain Danilo Lim, however, scoffed at Osmeña’s idea. Lim, who ran under the opposition’s council slate but lost, said the City couldn’t even settle its billions of foreign loans, so how could it have money for the so-called new barangay?
“Dako ang utang sa syudad sa SRP, magbuhat na hinoon og laing barangay?” Lim said (The City still has huge debts for the SRP, how could it afford to create a new barangay?).
He called this “lihoy nga plano” (crazy idea).
The new barangay that the mayor plans to make will be populated by squatters from all over the city who will be relocated there, he added.
The plan, though, hinges on the sale of the 30-hectare SRP lot that Osmeña said would cost P2 billion to P4 billion.
Osmeña has said the new barangay will serve as a model for the City’s comprehensive drainage plan and will have a church, school, market, cemetery and bus terminal. (RHM)
