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Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña has sought authority from the City Council to sue the province for depriving urban poor settlers of their homes on a province-owned lot in barangay Apas.
But Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia yesterday assured that the affected families belonging to the Alliance of Barangay Apas Community Association (Abaca) would not be deprived of shelter.
?The provincial government will take care of them because even if they are not provincial voters, they are still Cebuanos,? said Garcia after coming out of a meeting with Abaca members.
Both parties agreed in the meeting to let the families stay in a small area of the lot while the Capitol developed the rest.
Some Abaca members earlier sought City Hall?s help on the plan of the province to clear them out of the 80-hectare lot that was occupied by the Armed Forces of the Philippines? (AFP) Central Command (CentCom).
While the lot was donated to the AFP as military reserve, CentCom used only a fraction of the land. Some 19 hectares have become home to a community of informal settlers.
The province then moved to recover the donated property.
Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro signed an agreement last month returning the lot to the province.
While CentCom will transfer to other locations outside Cebu City, the settlers feared that they would become homeless. They sought the city government?s help.
Councilor Edgardo Labella said the city?s intervention may come in the form of an injunction case against plans to zone the Apas lot and other Friar Lands in the city for commercial use.
Labella, chairman of the City Council? committee on laws, said he would submit a proposed resolution, authorizing Mayor Osmeña to file the injunction case.
City Administrator Francisco Fernandez said the move to sue the province was pushed by Abaca beneficiaries of Presidential Proclamation 409, and of Provincial Ordinance 93-1, which entitled informal residents to ownership of the land that they had been living on after paying for it.
PP 409 declares the area occupied by Abaca as a socialized housing site.
But PP 409 has not been implemented six years after its passage, said association president Maria Linda Paracuelles.
?It was proclaimed in 2003. It?s already 2009, and nothing has happened. Now is the time (to file the case),? said Paracuellas.
After the private meeting, Paracuelles said Abaca and the governor reached an informal agreement on the matter.
PP 409 groups its beneficiaries into three ?blocks? ? Block A is four hectares and densely populated, Block B is 14 hectares and has few occupants, while Block C contains Apas? barangay hall, public school, health center and sports complex.
The agreement reached yesterday had all occupants of Block A moved to Block B, freeing Block A and the rest of the lot for the province?s development.
Paracuelles said Abaca suggested this setup two years ago, but was initially denied by the Capitol.
?We?ll have to consult the people in Block A again. That was our proposal before, but maybe people have changed their minds,? Paracuelles said. ?The meeting (with the governor) was just a consultation. When we?re at the negotiating table, we also have to give a little, not just take and take. But we won?t be careless either.?
Osmeña, however, said Abaca should not take the negotiations at face value, claiming that Garcia had a track record of going back on her word.
?She has a history of being erratic. First she agreed to a land swap, then she said no land swap. We will just settle this in court,? Osmeña said.
Paracuelles said Abaca would not stop the city from pursuing legal action either.
Garcia said she was happy to have reached a ?win-win solution? with Abaca
She stressed that the agreement was only for the 1,200 Abaca members recognized as occupants of the Apas lot.
