THE Cebu City Council yesterday revived a five-year-old land swap proposal between the city government and the Capitol to settle the fate of about 5,000 families occuping province-owned lots.
Councilors crossed party lines to approve the resolution authored by Councilor Rodrigo Abellanosa to exchange land occupied by settlers under Provincial Ordinance No. 93-1 with the two-hectare Block 27 in the North Reclamation Area.
A public hearing on the proposal is set on Aug. 15.
“I am happy with Abellanosa’s change of heart and that he now supports the lot swap,” said Councilor Jose Daluz III.
Abellanosa opposed then Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s swap proposal in 2007.
Daluz is allied with Mayor Michael Rama, who declined to comment on the action till he reads the measure.
The mayor said he was waiting for a briefing from the Department for the Welfare of the Urban Poor (DWUP) on the status of 93-1 negotiations.
Ordinance No. 93-1 covers province-owned lands in Cebu City. Many are occupied by settlers and homeowners associations.
The provincial government is negotiating with settlers for them to purchase the lots by installement through direct sale or the Community Mortgage Program.
Homeowners groups already signed a memorandum of agreement last May to buy the lots from the province. It was witnessed by Vice President Jejomar Binay who is chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC).
The 93-1 settlers have six months or until November this year to close the deal, otherwise the Capitol will retake possession of the lots.
In a public hearing in June 2012, urban poor occupants expressed their concern about the high cost of land and the short term of payment being offered.
They instead asked the City Hall to revive the land swap deal, which was aborted in 2007 after Gov. Gwen Garcia was slighted by remarks of then vice mayor Rama that the Capitol was taking undue advantage (“dawat ug limpyo”).
The resolution said that “there is a need for the city government to ensure that the option to purchase given to the urban poor takes into consideration the welfare and interest of the affected urban poor occupants of the province-owned lots.”
Meanwhile, Congressman Osmeña said he “suggested” to his allies in the Bando Osmena Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK) who dominate the City Council to pass a resolution reviving the land swap deal.
Osmeña called on Mayor Rama to redeem himself by supporting the swap this time.
Rama said in earlier interview that a land swap could be used as ground for a graft case. He said the deal was disadvantageous to the city government.
Block 27, a prime commercial lot across the Cebu International Port, was valued at P500 million when the land swap was first proposed in 2007.
The unpaid amortization of the settlers was P187 million.
Rama said that he saved Osmeña and other city officials from a possible graft case when he opposed the land swap deal in 2007.
But Osmeña said that if Rama’s logic were followed, he could have already gone to jail together with recipients of SRP lot donations.
When Osmeña was still mayor, he authorized the donation of a two-hectare lot at the South Road Properties to the Court of Appeals (CA).
Councilor Nida Cabrera was emotional about the revived land swap proposal.
“I shed tears because of failure of the approval of the resolution (authorizing the land swap) which we prepared for two years. It just took five seconds to disapprove it,” she said recalling the council’s action in 2007.