Zambo execs to evacuees: Time to go

What used to be a track and field oval became a growing colony of shanties and villagers searching for answers to why the communities they used to live in before the MILF terror attack on Zamboanga City had been declared no build zones. JULIE S. ALIPALA/INQUIRER MINDANAO

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Up to 4,000 people who are still homeless after the terror attack on the city by followers of Moro leader Nur Misuari would be moved out of a sports complex here that had become a symbol of the subhuman conditions that the evacuees had suffered and continue to suffer following the siege and the armed government response to it.

The evacuees have nowhere to go as they rejected relocation sites that would move them too far from their sources of livelihood after the communities they lived in prior to the siege had been declared no-build zones.

Elmer Apolinario, assistant city administrator, said city officials have to speed up the removal of up to 4,000 evacuees still languishing at the Don Joaquin F. Enriquez Memorial Sports Complex which is due for rehabilitation.

Authorities are blaming the stay of evacuees in the complex for the facility’s decay. Bleachers, rubberized track field, toilets and offices in the complex had been destroyed, according to Apolinario.

After the rehabilitation, city officials hope to turn the complex into “more like a stadium of Olympic standards.”

Luis Vicente Despalo, city engineer, said the city needed at least P350 million for the project. The extent of the damage to the facility, according to Despalo, is at least P300 million.

Relocation

Apolinario said evacuees agreed to move to another place only if the relocation sites have available electric and water facilities.

Ramada Jose, an evacuee, said there could be more evacuees in the complex than had been counted by authorities. Jose estimates at least 700 families are still languishing in the sports complex-turned-evacuation site.

“Not everyone agrees with the relocation plan of the government,” said Jose, adding that most of the displaced people preferred to return to their former communities that had been declared no-build zones for reasons that the people still could not understand.

Apolinario said city officials are still trying to convince the evacuees to agree to move to sites identified by the city government.

He said the city government has to finish the project before the elections because “we don’t know if we are going to have a President who would make a commitment to help Zamboanga.”

Despalo said the city has no budget for the project and is relying on a commitment made by President Aquino to support it.

The city would submit a budget proposal to Malacañang “as soon as possible,” said Despalo.

After the budget proposal is approved by Malacañang, the city plans to start the bidding process by September and actual work on the project in October. Julie S. Alipala, Inquirer Mindanao