Barangay office in Banawa

A barangay Guadalupe service center will be opened in sitio Banawa starting next week to address the need of residents for barangay services.

Barangay captain Michael Gacasan said last Friday that barangay personnel  would be deployed to man the center located near the One Pavilion Place.

Gacasan said he would also hold office there every once in a while.

The office already had an electric connection and was ready for use.

Putting a barangay service center in sitio Banawa followed the failed move to divide sitios Banawa and Englis into a separate barangay from Guadalupe.

Failure of barangay officials to address the basic concerns of their sitio, which was far from the barangay hall, was a reason advocates pushed for the failed Guadalupe split.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, who supported the move to divide Guadalupe, said he would have wanted to set up a satellite barangay in Banawa with a barangay hall manned by City Hall employees and a deputy barangay captain, which he would appoint.

Gacasan, however, said the service center had long been planned.

“Bisan wala pa ang plebisito nag plano na ta nga mag butang ug service center pero wala lang dayon ta naka kita ug lugar (Even when there’s no plebiscite, we already planned to set up a service center but it took quite a while because we couldn’t find a place for it),” said Gacasan.

Rep. Tomas Osmeña of Cebu City’s south district last Friday defended Guadalupe officials against Mayor Rama’s claims that the officials failed to deliver basic services especially in the collection of garbage.

Osmeña, a Guadalupe resident and an ally of Gacasan, said Rama was being “unfair” to the barangay officials.

“I just would like to point out that there seems to be a deliberate and malicious move on the part of Rama (to discredit barangay officials) when they have not even provided any garbage truck to the barangay,” he said.

Barangay Guadalupe only has six functioning garbage trucks.

The barangay needs at least 8 to 9 garbage trucks to better serve their constituents, said barangay councilor Ventura Montecillo, head of the environmental sanitation committee.

Montecillo said the Department of Public Services took over the barangay garbage collection starting on May 8.

He said that the barangay’s six garbage trucks were manned by 24 City Hall garbage collectors and parked at the DPS garage.

But he said there were times when the barangay would send out its multicab to help in the collecting garbage.

Yet, Guadalupe barangay officials get the blame for uncollected garbage.

Osmena also corrected Rama on passing the blame for the uncollected garbage to the barangay officials.

He said garbage collection was the responsibility of the city government. When he was mayor he devolved such a responsibility to the barangay in order to also address corruption problems at the Department of Public Services.

But in doing so, Osmena said, he provided the barangays with garbage trucks.

Gacasan said as much as they wanted to help DPS collect garbage from their barangay, they are constrained from doing so because of their lack of garbage trucks.

He said he even requested city hall to instead give him a new garbage truck as a replacement to the four wheel drive which Rama promised to the 80 barangay captains.