‘Yolanda’ housing project to dislocate 21 families

ILOILO CITY—Ofimia Bangiban is thankful that “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) spared the lives of her family and relatives in Carles, one of the towns severely damaged by the supertyphoon in Iloilo province in 2013.

But two years after the calamity, she and her relatives are haunted by the looming loss of their houses and the land they have occupied for generations in Barangay Dayhagan in Carles to a government housing project intended for typhoon survivors.

“Our family has been living in our land since the time of our grandparents. Now we are being driven away and our crops being destroyed because the (project implementers) say we have no right over the land,” Bangiban told reporters here.

On Wednesday, representatives of 21 families living in the village sought the help of the Ombudsman field office in Iloilo to stop their ejection from a 17-hectare property where a project of the National Housing Authority (NHA) is being implemented.

The land is the subject of a legal dispute between the Bangiban and Occeña families. Fhymore Gascon, legal counsel of the Bangibans, said the NHA had pursued the project despite the conflicting ownership claims.

According to Gascon, the two families had entered into a settlement when the Occeñas agreed to withdraw their claim as reflected in the annotated land title they possess. But, he said, the annotation “mysteriously disappeared” in the records of the provincial register of deeds.

“We are digging into the circumstances how annotations of a title were suddenly erased without court proceedings and without records,” he said.

The lawyer said the families had asked the NHA to stop the housing project pending the resolution of the ownership dispute, but the government agency insisted that it had already acquired a title for a portion of the property and that the construction of the housing units started this year.

Luz Ysatam, NHA officer in charge for Iloilo project, could not be contacted at her office and through her mobile phones for her comment.