8 Bo. Luz households find relocation

EIGHT out of 32 families whose homes were demolished a week before  in barangay Luz, Cebu City have been relocated, Cebu City officials said last week.

According to the Division for the Welfare of the Urban Poor (DWUP) four families from sitio Mabuhay were tranferred to barangay Bulacao while four other families from sitio Lubi were relocated to barangay Basak-Pardo.

DWUP have given the dislocated urban poor families a choice to go to city relocation sites in sitio UCLAHAI in barangay Tisa, barangay Bulacao, barangay Inayawan and barangay Basak-Pardo, Cebu City.

Last Tuesday, Regional Trial Court Judge Ramon Daomilas told some of the affected households to choose which relocation sites the city is offering them where they prefer to relocate to.

DWUP also said displaced settlers didn’t transfer to the staging areas identified and provided by the barangay officials.

These staging areas are located in sitios Nangka, Lubi and Abellana for their temporary shelter.

Barangay administrator Maynard Salingahay confirmed that settlers are resistant to transfer to the staging areas provided by the barangay. The seven-day period for temporary shelter expires today.

Councilor Nida Cabrera said she and other leaders of the three homeowners association (HOA) in Luz will still have to choose the CMP beneficiaries that will assume the lots left vacant by the demolition.

Cabrera said these beneficiaries are “not outsiders” and are in the master list.

She said these are mostly extended families of the qualified members of the Socialized Housing Program (SHP).

“They are secondary beneficiaries and they still have to undergo process to become qualified assumees,” said Cabrera.

The expenses of the members of the Homeowners’ Associations in Luz will have a shared payment with the assumees.

Cabrera said these expenses include their filing of cases in the previous years.

The payment that will be shared between the members of the HOAs and the assumees is separate from the compounded penalty of the HOAs for those “delinquent” settlers who didn’t pay the lots they occupied for almost 20 years now.

The demolition of the 32 households stemmed from the case filed by HOAs against residents  who  continued their stay in the area that was covered by the Community Mortgage Program (CMP) in 1996.

The 32 households claim to be the original residents of the area reserved for poor residents way back in 1950.

The court however ruled in favor the HOAs who availed of the CMP, an urban poor housing program of the government. /Tweeny M. Malinao, Correspondent