Labella eyes Cebu reclamation for North Bus Terminal

CEBU City Mayor Edgardo Labella is eyeing Block 27 in North Reclamation Area as the possible relocation site of the Cebu North Bus Terminal (CNBT).

The local executive will form a committee to study the traffic impact once the relocation site of the CNBT is decided.

The 3.3-hectare Block 27 is a Cebu City-owned lot. It is near the Mahiga Creek, the natural boundary between the cities of Cebu and Mandaue.

“That is a very suitable area,” he said.

Labella said the relocation of the CNBT entails a close coordination among the local government units of the cities of Mandaue and Cebu and Cebu Province. Part of the discussion, he said, would be about the traffic the bus depot might bring to its relocation site.

The mayor is set to meet with Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes on the second week of January to discuss the CNBT transfer.

The Cebu City Government’s lease contract with the Mandaue City Government for the terminal will expire in October 2020, and Cortes recently announced that he would not be renewing it.

Cortes’ letter

Cortes said he already sent a letter to Labella in November 2019, telling the latter of his intention not to renew the 25-year lease contract of the CNBT.

The Cebu City Government, he said, had yet to reply to his letter.

Cortes said he is also open to a dialogue with the bus operators, who mostly expressed their opposition to his plan.

In more than two decades, the CNBT management has been paying only P2 million as annual rental fee. The terminal occupies an 8,816-square-meter lot in Barangay Subangdaku in Mandaue City.

Mandaue City, said Cortes, is not earning the real value of the lot where the CNBT stands. (JJL, KFD)