Body eyed to resolve relocation site woes

CEBU, Philippines -  The Cebu City Council has requested Mayor Michael Rama to appoint and create an ad hoc committee to address the problem in the relocation site of the city government in Barangay Pulpogan, Consolacion.

This after the Municipality of Consolacion has asked the city’s help to investigate the alleged proliferation of new settlers in the socialized housing site.

Consolacion Mayor Teresa Alegado and Pulpogan Barangay Captain Roger Linaboc yesterday appeared in the executive session of the members of the City Council to clear the issues on the beneficiaries of socialized housing program.

Alegado earlier expressed the intent of the municipality to acquire the lot that the city government owns so that the municipal government will have the power to resolve the issue.

“Right now, my problem is the proliferation of new settlers and I cannot settle it because the lot is not ours,” she said.

City Councilor Alvin Dizon, chairman on the committee on housing, said that there are 936 household beneficiaries based on the data from the Department for the Welfare of the Urban Poor.

Dizon said that 561 out of the 936 beneficiaries are the original beneficiaries, while 375 households bought their lots from somebody else. However, Alegado   said   that  the  latest count is that there are 2, 320 households living in the relocation site in Barangay Pulpogan.

“We want to bring up that these are your people who are now with us. We want you to help us. We want help from the Cebu City government because there was no memorandum of agreement on the onset of the relocation site,” she said.

“I am not adamant of owning, but we should define as to where I should put in my authority,” she said, adding that the misdemeanor of the people li-ving in the relocation site should be the concern of both Cebu City and Muni-cipality of Consolacion.

Alegado said that the municipality is willing to accept the people living at the relocation site. She said that selling of the rights of the lots is not allowed under the Memorandum of Agreement signed between the city government and the homeowners’ association.

Lawyer Collin Rosell, chief of the Division for the Welfare of the Urban Poor, said that his office is currently working on the titling of the land. Rosell said there are 500 original beneficiaries of the socialized housing program in the said relocation site.

He said that it is alarming to know that it has ballooned to 2,320 households already, adding that his office is now tracing the original beneficiaries for the titling of the land. He said that it would take a year to process the titling and the residential free patent.— (FREEMAN)