CEBU City Councilor Jocelyn Pesquera is strongly advocating for the preservation and creation of open spaces across the city, particularly highlighting a disputed parcel of land in Old Philippine Railway Residents Association (Oprra), Barangay Kalunasan. She urges this land be reverted to public use as a park.
She appealed to both Mayor-elect Nestor Archival and Gov. -elect Pamela Baricuatro to prioritize the establishment of parks in all barangays.
Pesquera emphasized in a privilege speech on Wednesday, May 21, 2025, the City’s existing regulations, citing the 1996 revised zoning ordinance that defines open spaces exclusively as areas such as parks, playgrounds and recreational areas.
She noted that a “park” is defined as an area for active or passive recreation, potentially including landscaped areas, promenades, seating, children’s play areas, gardens and water elements. The ordinance even allows underground parking if the ground level is maintained as a park.
“Imagine, mao ni (this is the) definition sa atoang (of our) revised zoning ordinance,” said Pesquera, drawing attention to these established definitions as the City Council is still in the process of approving a new zoning ordinance.
Pesquera also invoked Presidential Decree (PD) 1216, which mandates that subdivision owners or developers provide adequate roads, alleys, and sidewalks. Crucially, for projects of one hectare or more, 30 percent of the gross area must be reserved for open space, such as parks, playgrounds, and recreational use.
These areas, the decree states, “shall be non-alienable public lands and non-buildable.” The decree specifies percentages for open areas based on housing density: nine percent for high-density, seven percent for low-density/economic and 3.5 percent for low-density/open market housing.
This advocacy stems particularly from the long-standing issue surrounding the Oprra property.
Pesquera said that sometime in 2020, the Provincial Government decided to sell subdivided lots within the property to its present occupants.
Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia had been authorized by the Provincial Board (PB) on March 6, 2020, to sell the 160,196 square-meter land.
For a long time, the Province had tolerated the occupation of these subdivided lots. However, on Jan. 28, 2020, demand letters were sent to occupants to vacate the home lots they were “illegally occupying.”
The land dispute has a long history, with developments to settle it initiated as far back as June 7, 1971, when the Province and Oprra Inc. signed a sales agreement for 11 parcels of land at P10 per square meter. Forty years later, on April 16, 2012, the PB terminated this agreement due to the association members’ failure to pay.
Pesquera highlighted that if PD 1216 were applied to the Oprra property, approximately 48,058.8 square meters would be required as open space.
Considering the area as high-density, the mandated park space alone would be 14,417.64 square meters, or nine percent of the total land area.
She recalled that sometime in 1998, the Oprra area was indeed utilized as an open space. However, when Governor Garcia later fenced off the area, vehicle owners were reportedly made to pay up to P15,000 a month for parking regulation.
“Now, people no longer have a space for their annual, monthly, barangay activities. And children no longer have spaces to play like now (that) it’s summer,” Pesquera lamented.
In light of these concerns, she made several specific requests, such as urging Governor-elect Baricuatro to revert the parcel of land in Kalunasan, which was previously used as open space, back to public use and make it free for all Oprra residents.
She requested the Department of Engineering and Public Works to conduct a resurvey of the land allocated as open space.
Pesquera also asked the Parks and Playground Office to prepare plans and programs for the establishment of a park and playground for Oprra.
Finally, she called on the mayor-elect to establish parks and playgrounds in all barangays across Cebu City. / JPS