Block 27 settlers to leave today

The remaining 30 families that evacuated last year to Block 27 in the North Reclamation Area will finally leave for a relocation site in barangay Budlaan, Cebu City today.

Kaoshiung buses will bring them to the mountain site while dump trucks will haul their belongings.

Empty tents were dismantled in Block 27, whose space will be used by dredging equipment for desilting of the Mahiga Creek.

The transfer agreement was reached during a dialog with settlers and  DWUP chief Collin Rosell on Tuesday.

City Hall will ask the Visayan Electric Company (Veco) to install electrical connections in the Budlaan site and provide portable toilets and a water tank.

In the meantime, City Hall will lend a generator set so settlers will have electric power.

Budlaan is the permanent relocation site offered by the city government.

Councilor Alvin Dizon, who earlier deplored the pressure on settlers to leave Block 27 as “inhuman treatment” said the site must be inhabitable.

“Permanent relocation site must be acceptable to the Mahiga settlers. City has both legal and moral responsibility to help these people,” he said in a text message.

Livelihood cash aid of P10,000 each was distributed to the third batch of settlers, said Ester Concha, head of the Department of Social Welfare and Services.

Out of 35 families identified in Block 27, 16 families were the last set of families given livelihood aid. These families were settlers evacuated from Mahiga creek, Mabolo, Careta and Tejero.

The DSWS will monitor how settlers use the “cash loan”, said Concha.