Keeping a promise, not a show

They aren’t  indigent settlers yet one has to sympathize with the situation of  residents of sitio San Miguel, barangay Apas, in Cebu City who face demolition of their homes.

A court ruling last Friday  all but sealed the hopes of 140 families against being guaranteed a permanent stay in what used to be a PNP training camp area in Camp Lapu-Lapu, the place they called home for over 20 years.

The pending eviction was eclipsed by a reignited word war between Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama and his predecessor Rep. Tomas Osmeña of Cebu City’s south district.

In belittling Rama’s efforts to stop the court-ordered demolition, Osmeña accused the mayor of using the plight of the Apas residents to boost his 2013 election chances along with his running mate Councilor Eduardo Labella.

“Acting showbiz,”  Osmeña sneered, an all too obvious  reference to the mayor’s cousin Annabelle Rama, whose husband, two sons and daughter Ruffa are showbiz celebrities.

More serious was Osmeña’s accusation that Labella was being insincere, and even mercenary, in his offer for help considering that Labella was working in the same office as  the  lawyer of lot owner Mariano Godinez.

That was a half-truth right there. It turns out that the two lawyers do share office space (to save on rent) but not clients.

Labella denied he was a law partner of the landowner’s legal counsel. He said most of his cases were pro bono or free of charge, and that his intervention in the Apas property dispute was a formal appearance in court on behalf of the City of Cebu as requested by the mayor.

Perhaps the most telling comment was that of  Colin Rosell of the Department of Welfare of  the Urban Poor, who pointed out that in all of Osmeña’s years as mayor, he failed to resolve the plight of  Apas residents by providing  a suitable relocation site. Yes, in 1999 during his first term as mayor, the City Council passed a resolution declaring the contested area a socialized housing site, but where was the follow through?

The judge last week ruled that the homeowners, many of them families of police and armed forces personnel, don’t have a legal leg to stand on to invoke the Urban Housing and Development Housing Act.  They aren’t “urban poor” and the period to challenge the demolition order had passed.

The long-running property dispute in court will be forced to end in two ways: an ugly demolition or the residents bowing to the judgment of the court that the private land owner Mariano Godinez deserves to get his land back. A six-month grace period to voluntarily dismantle their houses and move out has been offered by Godinez’s lawyer.

There is a third way to end it without bloodshed.

Can Mayor Rama make good his promise to negotiate with the lot owner to allow residents to occupy the same lot as a social housing site or to provide one in another location?

Negotiations to do this would come at great financial cost to City Hall and to homeowners who would have to buy the land albeit on installment basis.  This is due to the high commercial value of this strip of land a block away from the Asiatown IT Park.

Ever since the landowner sued in court in 1997 to recover the land, dwellers have been put on notice that tenure was uncertain.

Several orders to vacate and demolition notices have been postponed with the intervention of the two city mayors.

The crunch comes when political leaders can’t deliver on their promises.

Though the law is not on their side at the moment (there is the Supreme Court to run to as a last resort), it would not be right for them to be forced out of their homes with no alternatives. They were assured time and time again by City Hall of help, up until the last dramatic hour of waiting for a stay of the demolition order.

It befalls on City Hall, whose leaders both past and present have vowed to look after them, to make good on their promise.