The fire victims of Guizo-Mantuyong were temporarily taking shelter at the Cebu International Convention Center. (CDN FILE PHOTO)
THE 887 families, who were displaced by the last March 2016 fire in Barangays Guizo and Mantuyong in Mandaue City, will have to stay longer at the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) grounds where they had been temporarily staying for the last 10 months.
Tony Pet Juanico, Mandaue City Housing and Development Office (HUDO) chief, told the families that they would have to stay a few more days at the CICC since the development of their relocation site in a 9.2 hectare lot in Barangays Mantuyong and Guizo were still ongoing.
Juanico said that the development of the 9.2 hectare land had been hampered by weather disturbances in the past few months.
He said that the intermittent rains would make the soil of the site sloppy, causing their equipment to be muddied. Compaction is the process of applying mechanical force on the soil to increase its strength and density. “Di lalim ang site development. Gadali mi pero ang weather condition ga-disrupt sa amoang efforts (Site development is not easy. We’ve been trying to expedite the process but the weather condition would always disrupt our efforts),” Juanico told Cebu Daily News.
Juanico asked the affected families to be patient because they could not bypass this essential process before starting the construction of houses.
If the weather condition continues to improve in the coming days, Juanico said that the compaction process will be finished within the month.
As they await for the operation to be finished, HUDO is conducting mind-setting seminars for the displaced families as they undergo transition to their new community.
Around 65 percent of the families will be relocated to the 9.2-hectare land while the remaining 35 percent will be relocated to a 2.5-hectare land in Lapu-Lapu City which the Mandaue City government bought for the fire victims.
The families will each receive 28 square meters piece of lot, Juanico said. Juanico added that initially, the city government has decided for a method of drawing lots to identify which families are going to a particular relocation site, but this is still subject to change.