Legal assistance kiosk to be set up for Pasil fire victims

FIRE victims of the last week’s fire in three sitios in Barangay Pasil in Cebu City can have a chance to re-acquire their legal documents destroyed by the fire for free through the a legal assistance kiosk to be set up at one of the fire affected sitios — Sitio Lawis.

Aside from the food and shelter, Cebu City Vice Mayor Edgar Labella, whose office initiated the kiosk project, said that this kind of assistance would also be needed by the fire victims.

“Usa sa atong nakita nga panginahanglan mao ang pag-draft og mga affidavits of loss. Second is to make representations to the agencies of government, like the marriage contract, birth certificate adto sa civil registrar (One of the needs of the victims include the drafting of affidavits of loss.

Second is to make representations to the agencies of the government, like for the marriage contract or birth certificate to the civil registrar),” said Labella.

He said that these would help in lessening the expenses to reacquire these lost documents.

“Sa 700 ka pamilya nga nasunogan, of course kadaghanan ani nila dunay mga anak, mga magtiayon. So kasagaran kung dili tanan, dunay mga legal documents so kini nangasunog kinahanglan i-reconstitute ni (Most of the 700 affected families have children and most of them are couples. So they would need to reconstitute the legal documents that they lost in the fire),” he said in an interview.

He said this assistance would be a big help to them because it would save them not only money but also time to go to law offices to go through the process of reacquiring their destroyed documents.

The legal volunteers manning the Legal Assistance Kiosk said that they can help the victims re-acquire birth certificates, marriage contracts, land titles and tax declarations and voter’s IDs.

Some volunteer lawyers and law students from the University of San Carlos (USC) will help draft affidavits and other forms of legal documents.

The assistance kiosk will be put up after the Sinulog festivities and will be for three days or until the affected families are accommodated, said Labella.