Cebu housing board studying residents' plea

CEBU, Philippines - The local housing board of Cebu City is expected to come up with recommendations on Friday in connection with the petition of residents-beneficiaries of the Slum Improvement Resettlement (SIR) Program in Alaska, Mambaling asking that they be granted a 20-year extension which would allow them to pay for their lots.

Rowena Rosales, secretary of the city’s local housing board said a committee has been formed to review the residents’ request.

The resident’s houses sit on a 13.3-hectare SIR zone.

The original agreement between the residents and the city government allowed residents to own their lots by paying only P62 per square meter for lots beside the road and those in the internal part only have to pay P57 per square meter.

The SIR program was implemented in 1981. Currently, there are 1,800 families occupying the area but only 125 of them have paid for their lot in full and are now set to get their certificate of title from the city government.

The rest of them failed to pay their debts for various reasons until the contract expired just last December.

The city gave them a six-month extension which would expire on June 30 this year but still, all of them have not settled their obligations yet.

Rosales said the committee is rushing the review because of the deadline. Should the city grant the extension, the residents may have to pay a penalty for their delinquency, an official of the local housing board said.

The original beneficiaries of the SIR are blaming the SIR office, which is now under the Department for the Welfare of Urban Poor following the adoption of city ordinance 1889 on February 2001, for not diligently doing its job to supervise and monitor the program resulting to the increase of illegal entrants and the reported selling of rights of original beneficiaries.  - THE FREEMAN