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Capitol is now back on the negotiating table with the close to 5,000 families occupying province-owned lots covered by Ordinance 93-1, after locking horns over a botched land swap deal between Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña.

In her press conference yesterday afternoon, Garcia said the province will start negotiating directly with the lot occupants and with their respective barangay captains.

Based on the records of the provincial government, most of the beneficiaries live in barangay Luz while the others come from Apas, Busay, Mabolo, Kasambagan, Kamputhaw, Lahug, and Kalunasan. The total land area is 46.8 hectares with an appraised value of P3.2 billion.

“We can start the negotiations now with their respective barangay captains especially Lahug, and perhaps with the barangays that would want to have a dialogue with us,” Garcia said.

An organization of 11 homeowners associations in barangay Luz wrote the governor on February 22, expressing their willingness to negotiate after they learned that the Capitol is willing to talk to them.

Garcia has already issued an executive order, creating a committee that will deal directly with the affected occupants. The committee is composed of Cebu provincial lawyer Marino Martinquilla, provincial real estate property section head Paul Entera, provincial treasurer Roy Salubre and Board member Juan Bolo.

The governor clarified that Capitol would only deal with the 2,752 families who either didn’t pay or had given partial payments to the provincial government. Records at the provincial real estate property section showed that 1,430 beneficiaries had fully paid the province before the cut-off date in September 2004. 

Some 1,208 beneficiaries had made partial payments while 1,517 have not paid at all.

Salubre earlier assured that those families who had fully paid would not be touched by the Capitol even if many of them have not received the titles of their land yet.

The Capitol has indefinitely suspended the effectivity of the eviction notices sent out to the occupants of all province-owned lots in Cebu City covered by the ordinance to show good faith while negotiating with the beneficiaries of the lots in question.

Under the original terms of the lot swap proposal, the city offered to give a 3.6-hectare prime property at the North Reclamation Area in exchange for the province’s 53 hectares spread in 11 barangays in the city.

But Capitol officials dropped the original proposal, after some city officials said they found the deal disadvantageous. — Garry B. Lao/MEEV