UP informal settlers deserve due process

CEBU, Philippines - Informal settlers at the University of the Philippines (UP) – Cebu campus in Barangay Lahug should be given due process if the school administration wants to evict them, according to Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama.

The mayor also directed Collin Rosell of the Division for the Welfare of Urban Poor (DWUP) to monitor the case and find out how the city can help the concerned residents of the UP-Cebu lot along Gorordo Avenue.

The UP-Cebu administration earlier installed two huge billboards inside the UP compound announcing to the informal settlers that they should start looking for another place because the lots they are occupying will be used for school expansion projects. There are about 1,000 families presently occupying the UP lots in question.

Rama advised the UP officials to include the concerned residents in the planning of how the evictions will be implemented. Rama said the city government always supports projects that are “equitable, fair and laudable.”

“They know better. You know, if a school will be the one creating more trouble, then that is not a school,” the mayor said.

UP-Cebu campus owns a 12-hectare lot donated by the Cebu provincial government in 1929. The state university, however, failed to utilize a huge portion of the lot and these have been used by informal settlers for their homes and even business establishments for the past several decades.

“This is to reiterate in writing, once more, that you are occupying a property without permission from the UP administration. You can be evicted anytime after the requisite legal and due process is complied with by the university,” the UP officials said.

UP-Cebu, its officials said, will be constructing new buildings in line with the implementation of the UP centennial development plans. The administration has sent word to the concerned residents, discouraging them from making improvements to their present structures.

UP officials said “a forceful action will be made against those who build new structures, expand houses, put up new businesses and whatever endeavors that will stall our efforts toward the development of the place.”

During the time of then mayor Tomas R. Osmeña, the city donated a five-hectare property at the South Road Properties (SRP) to UP-Cebu to discourage school officials from evicting the informal settlers in UP-Cebu’s Lahug property. Rama, however, said he does not know the specifics of the deal.

City Councilor Mary Ann Delos Santos, who used to be the barangay captain of Lahug, suggested that UP officials should first come up with an inventory of residents who may be affected by the planned school expansion projects.

Delos Santos said the school officials should also help make sure that the families who will be affected by the project can be provided with a relocation site, particularly those who have lived in the place for several years.

Meanwhile, Provincial Legal Officer Orvi Ortega yesterday clarified that the Capitol no longer owns any portion of the lot it donated to UP-Cebu after some of the informal settlers used the Capitol as an excuse to stay in the area.

There are reportedly some informal settlers who claimed that UP has no right to evict them because the property is owned by the provincial government.

Ortega said he was informed by Capitol Real Estate Section head Paul Entera that what is left under the name of the Province of Cebu is a 2,000 square meter strip of land beside the UP-Cebu Dormitory.

“That is the only province-owned lot. The rest belongs to UP,” Ortega said. — Gregg M. Rubio/QSB