Cebu City Councilor Raymond Alvin Garcia says that the City Council is planning to finalize the 93-1 land swap agreement by October this year. | CDN Digital file photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City council’s committee on the 93-1 land swap deal has convened for the first time today, March 18, 2021, following the calls of the council members to hasten the deal which remained unimplemented because of flags made by the Commission on Audit (COA).
Councilor Raymond Alvin Garcia, told CDN Digital in a phone interview, that the members of the 93-1 land swap committee discussed the observations of the COA that led to the postponement of the implementation of the land swap deal, which is also the cause as to why the city government and the Cebu Provincial government were negotiating the matter.
Read: COA questions former Capitol officials for inking of land swap deal without its nod
They have decided that by October 2021, the land titles must already be distributed to the residents, which means that before that, the revised land swap deal with the Capitol must be finalized.
“Among target is by October maaward na nato ang deed of sale sa mga residente. So before that, dapat okay na ang 93-1 deal,” said Garcia.
(Our target is by October the deed of sale will be awarded to the residents. So before that, the 93-1 deal should be okay.)
It can be remembered that the 93-1 involves province-owned lots within the city that are occupied with at least 5,000 households in various barangays.
The swap was successfully made in 2018 under the terms of former mayor, Tomas Osmeña, and former governor, now Vice Governor Hilario Davide III.
Read: COA flags 93-1 land swap deal
The COA has issued an observation that the deeds of donation did not go through the proper process where COA was required to approve them beforehand.
This was the reason Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and Mayor Edgardo Labella decided to renegotiate the land swap under their administration in 2020. The terms of both chief executives are ending in a year and four months, yet the land swap deal has not been finalized yet.
Read: Capitol wants titles of province-owned lots from 93-1 swap returned
Governor Garcia has also asked the city government to return the titles of the previous contract since both parties plan to rescind it. As of this writing, the titles remain under the city government’s possession and Labella said they were still considering it.
Garcia said that with the council committee reviewing the terms of contract in the 93-1, this would hopefully hasten the negotiation with the Capitol, considering that their target was seven months.
Read: Cebu City to study return of 93-1 titles to Capitol
He called their first meeting to be “very preliminary” and they had not yet discussed any of the planned changes in the contract, but they only tackled the stand of both the city government and the Capitol.
Yet he assured the beneficiaries of the 93-1 land swap that by the end of this year, they will be title owners of their lots.
/dbs