Only registered Mandauehanons get relocation

AROUND 100 families who were renting houses that were razed by fire in Barangays Guizo and Mantuyong have been asked to vacate the temporary relocation site at the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC), grounds where the March 2016 fire victims were temporarily sheltered, said Guizo Barangay Captain Jesus Neri Sr.

Most of the tenants are not registered in Mandaue City and were asked to vacate because only registered Mandaue City residents will be given priority in the relocation efforts of the city government.

Mandaue City Mayor Luigi Quisumbing said the city government is doing its best to relocate the fire victims before the end of the year.

“I want to make sure that any return of the residents is in accordance with what is provided by the law based on the number of beneficiaries allowed by ordinance,” said Mayor Quisumbing.

The city government plans to give 28 square meters of land to each of the families left homeless by the fire, which is the minimum lot area provided by law.
Around 9.2-hectares of land donated by the government became home to some of the fire victims, some of them in privately owned lots.

However, if the government allows all of the fire victims to live in the 9.2-hectare lot, each family will get only 13 to 15 square meters, which Quisumbing finds “inhumane”.

He said a lot of this size is too small for people to actually live in with their families.

The Mandaue City government, however, plans to purchase lots in Lapu-Lapu or Consolacion because all the more than 800 families cannot be accommodated in the 9.2-hectare land in Mandaue.

According to City Attorney James Allan Sayson, only 369 families can be given 28-sq.m. lots each in that lot.

Parallel efforts are also being done to hasten the relocation of the fire victims.

Quisumbing said aside from developing the Guizo-Mantuyong area, the city government is also looking for possible relocation sites that have either been developed but not yet re-blocked or at the very least, a lot that requires only minimal development.

“We want to make sure andam na jud siya, if not, gamay na lang kaayog kuwang (We want to make sure the lot is ready, if not, requires only minimal work to develop the land),” said Mayor Quisumbing.

“The biggest problem we have in Mandaue in terms of development is the lack of vacant lots,” he said, adding that this is the reason why they are considering areas outside Mandaue as relocation sites.

The original plan was to put up a medium-rise development but the cost was a lot higher compared to the estimated cost of developing and re-blocking a new site in Lapu-Lapu City or Consolacion.