A foreign passenger walks behind parked buses at the Cebu South Bus Terminal located in N. Bacalso Avenue, Cebu City.
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City government is considering to give up two hectares of the South Road Properties (SRP) to the Province of Cebu for the new 93-1 land swap deal both governments are brewing.
This after the two parties mutually agreed to void the land swap deal undertaken by previous Cebu City mayor, Tomas Osmeña, and former governor, Hilario Davide III.
Councilor Raymond Alvin Garcia, the city’s land swap deal representative, said there would be different options to undertake for the new 93-1 deal that would be “beneficial” to the city and the province.
“We can either buy the lots from the province at a rate appraised by the COA (Commission on Audit), or we can choose new lots to swap. We can even do a mix of both,” he said.
Garcia said they would be leaning towards swapping some of the 93-1 lots for a two-hectare lot at the SRP so that the province could transfer the South Bus Terminal to the area.
He said that this would be one of the plans of Cebu City to ease the traffic congestion at the Natalio Bacalso Highway, so the buses would no longer ply the road there.
The SRP lot the city is considering to give to the province is the one near the start of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) so the public can use the BRT to travel from the South Bus terminal into the city proper.
Read more: Labella: 93-1 land swap deal will benefit residents
However, Garcia said this was simply the initial plans for the 93-1 as they continued to negotiate with the provincial government on how the deal would be done.
He assured the residents of the 93-1 lot that they would remain in their homes and nothing would change for them even if the legalities of the deal would change.
Garcia said that the provincial government and the city government would be forming its own appraisal committees to objectively identify the value of the 93-1 lots included in the deal.
Once the COA approves the lot’s appraisal, then they can begin to discuss a new deal between the city and the provincial government./dbs