Cebu’s leaders need to get their act together to combat congestion in the metropolis—a major cause of other problems like pollution, traffic, disease and crime—by bringing squatters back to their hometowns.
Most of those who joined the exodus from rural communities to urban areas, then end up in slums along the Mahiga Creek were lured by the myth that a brighter life awaits them in the city.
But they who make the journey, taking their families along, soon realize that it is not paved with golden opportunity but with the cold stones of competition.
Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia on Monday said the provincial government is just waiting for mayors of Metro Cebu to ask the Capitol’s help to send migrants return to the towns.
On humanitarian grounds, the mayors—including Cebu City’s Michael Rama—should seize this offer.
The “return of the natives,” so to speak, need not be a romanticized application of “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”
But it’s a lot of hard work to sincerely execute it.
Garcia’s “Balik Lungsod” program was announced in January this year and repeated after Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu cities were hit by unprecedented flashfloods in a Jan. 25 mini-Ondoy.
Illegal creek dwellers were blamed for the clogged waterways and drainange canals.
She mentioned free transportation to their towns of origin and efforts to find them livelihood, to keep slum dwelers from heading back to the city.
Sounds good but where are the results?
An ongoing E-Gwen program in the province aims to make towns “liveable” places to “work, play and invest.”
But the actual transfer of urban migrants back to Cebu’s rural areas remains a target to be fulfilled.
Garcia hit the nail on the head when she urged city politicians to “stop encouraging informal settlers to sprout like mushrooms all over just because you know that they will be your voters in the next elections.”
Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama is paying heavy political capital for following that line.
Past offers of relocation have been made to old-time dwellers in the Mahiga Creek and similar waterways, all turned down because they were far from sources of livelihood in the city or just unpalatable.
(Empty container vans were fine for Sinulog pilgrims for three days, but no one wants to actually live in them.)
While Mayor Rama weighs taking a P79-million loan from the country’s Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council to relocate the Mahiga Settlers, Cebu City cannot on its own relocate each batch of informal settlers.
The exodus from the towns to the cities should be stopped now.
It needs two-way cooperation of the province and Metro Cebu’s urban leaders.