Ermita fire victims seek council’s help

CEBU, Philippines - Residents and vendors at Warwick Barracks in Barangay Ermita are asking the Cebu City Council to investigate the status of the lot that they occupied after Mayor Michael Rama issued a pronouncement that he will no longer allow them to rebuild their houses and stalls in the area.

Perla Eraya, president of Warwick Barracks Homeowners Association, Stall Owners and Livelihood Association, Incorporated, in her letter to Councilor Alvin Dizon dated January 23, 2014, described the mayor’s pronouncement as “adding more insult to injury.”

“This is a bold and flagrant denial of our right to housing without even offering an alternative relocation sites for those families who are considered poor and underprivileged,” Eraya said.

Some 500 residents and vendors wrote down their names and signatures on the letter signifying their support to the request for assistance.

The matter was brought up during the regular session of the Council last Wednesday, where Dizon moved for its discussion in an executive session scheduled on February 19.

Eraya said that to their knowledge the lot is “untitled and unregistered.”

“Even its tax declaration as prepared and issued by the City Assessors of the City of Cebu, declarant is not the City of Cebu but the national government,” the letter read.

The association president further said that the city government, legally, could not exercise “jus soli” or the right to the property and “jus utendi” or right to use the property since it is not the registered owner of the said parcel of land.

“We will anticipate that the legislative department of the City of Cebu can shed light to this since this is a very sensitive issue of basic human right, in which the City of Cebu has the primordial obligation to defend and respect,” said Eraya.

The city government, she said, has started fencing the lot with the presence of government employees, barangay officials, police, and barangay tanods.  (FREEMAN)