Guadalupe - Labangon boundary issue: Council creates committee to settle dispute

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Council is creating a special committee composed of three councilors to settle the boundary dispute of barangays Labangon and Guadalupe.

This after Crispin Villarin, president of the United Banawa-Englis Association Incorporated, requested the City Council to conduct continuous hearings about the boundary dispute between the two barangays.

Villarin said the residents of sitio Englis and Banawa are already very eager for the realization of their dream to live in a new barangay to be called as barangay Banawa-Englis.

“Our rights to exist as a new barangay are long overdue. Hoping that you can help us attain and give us our right to vote in a plebiscite for the better future of our own new barangay,” Villarin said in his letter sent to the City Council, through Councilor Margarita “Margot” Osmeña.

Officials of barangay Labangon are complaining because the clamor of sitio Banawa-Englis residents to be separated from barangay Guadalupe will also affect their territorial jurisdiction.

The complaint stemmed from reports that once Guadalupe will be divided into two separate barangays, part of barangay Labangon, particularly a portion of Rosalina Village, would be under the territorial jurisdiction of Banawa-Englis.

But although the City Council decided to create the so-called Committee of Three, the city legislators still did not appoint who will compose the committee.

If the conflict to be settled involves a barangay in the south district, the procedure is that the councilors to compose the committee should come from the north district.

Then Cebu City south district Representative Antonio Cuenco already passed the bill for the creation of Banawa-Englis as a new barangay, but it was not approved until his term as congressmen ended last year.

Records from the National Statistics Office reveal that the current population of Guadalupe is around 47,700, with Banawa Englis residents numbering over 23,700 which is considered sufficient to be created into a new barangay.

Guadalupe is the largest barangay in Cebu City with a land area and population comparable to an average Cebu town.

It was Mayor Michael Rama, while he was still a city councilor, who earlier proposed an ordinance that was approved on December 18, 1996 that sought to divide Guadalupe into two barangays.

But Villarin said the scheduled plebiscite for that purpose has been postponed four times since since 1997. — (FREEMAN)