UNHAPPY WITH KALUNASAN RELOCATION PLAN: Apas fire victims start to rebuild

If plans of the city and the province of Cebu push through, Barangay Apas fire victims will soon find themselves in houses such as these built in a relocation site in Barangay Kalunasan — a mountain village with steep and winding roads reached only through motorcycles-for-hire, locally known as habal-habal. (CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO).

For fear of losing their slots, about 50 fire victims in Barangay Apas have returned to the fire site on Friday morning and began rebuilding homes without the permission of the Cebu City government.

Eric John Catalya, 28, a resident of the place, told Cebu Daily News that some of the fire victims have decided to return to the same area gutted down last Monday to avoid conflicts with other residents regarding the lots.

“Magmeeting pa mi unya … maghuwat pa mi sa approval. Ang uban kay nag-una-una og balik para dili mapulihan sa luna (We will still have a meeting later because we are waiting for approval, but some have gone back to their respective lots because they are scared that others might claim it),” Catalya said.

Catalya said that most of the people who returned to their lots were senior citizens who do not want to move to another place.

“Okay ra namo sa Kalunasan pero ang uban nga mga tigulang nga nagdako sa Apas, dili ganahan mubalhin (It’s okay for us to relocate to Kalunasan, but others who grew up in Apas do not want to move out),” Catalya said.

Cherry Malait, 36, is among those not keen on being relocated to Barangay Kalunasan.

Along with some neighbors, they are now starting to construct shanties in Sitio CRCI (Cebu Rehabilitation Center Inc.) as their “temporary shelter” while awaiting final word on where they will be relocated.

She said residents of CRCI are afraid that the province will push through with plans of taking back the 3,610-square-meter lot occupied by the homeowners’ association.

“Dili paman mi gusto mohawa sa among lugar. Nagtukod lang mi og trapal didto kay pahawaon naman sad mi dinhi sa DOST (We don’t want to move out of our place. We are building makeshift homes in the fire site since we have also been ordered to move out of the Department of Science and Technology),” Malait said, referring to the fire victims’ evacuation site at the nearby DOST compound.

Malait said that upon learning that the province and city governments planned to relocate them in Kalunasan, a mountain village where the most common mode of transportation is the motorcycle-for-hire commonly known as habal-habal, residents became worried about where to find a source of income.

Monday’s fire on a province-owned lot in Barangay Apas gutted down 162 houses. Some of the fire victims belong to a community of blind people.

The province agreed that it will be responsible for the relocation of 87 households, while the rest of the fire victims will be placed under the city’s relocation plan.

Either way, the relocation sites of both the city and province are located in the uplands of Kalunasan.

CRCI residents interviewed by Cebu Daily News said that while they had already accepted their fate that they may not be able to rebuild their homes on the same spot in Apas, they have not lost hope that a better relocation site will be provided for them, one that will not take them away from their current sources of livelihood.

A resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also told CDN that they could not afford the P1,680 per square meter price pegged for their relocation area.

“Unsa ra man tawn among panginabuhian? Panglaba ra unya naa pa g’yud dinhi. Lisod kaayo na namo maytag ubos ubosan nila nag presyo (How are we supposed to earn? I only do laundry. It would be very hard to pay for that price. I hope they decide to lower it),” she said.

The resident also added that the relocation site should at least have a line for electricity and water, something that the Kalunasan site sorely lacks.

A check made by CDN in Barangay Kalunasan showed that the relocation area remains covered with forest grass and trees that have yet to be cut to give way to the construction of new homes.

Reached primarily through habal-habal, the steep and winding access roads are quite a challenge to traverse to get to the site as there are no public utility jeepneys (PUJ) that ply the route, still largely undeveloped for now.

Department for Welfare of the Urban Poor (DWUP) head Genevieve Alcoseba who was not aware of the move of the residents until contacted by CDN said that the city did not give them the green light to return to their respective homes.

“But sometimes we cannot control them. DWUP is here to assist them, but we did not give a directive to them to return because the offer of the province was Barangay Kalunasan” Alcoseba said.

“It’s loud and clear for us here in city government that we did not give them authority to go back to their lots. We did not issue any order for their safety” she added.