Ermita’s Sitio Bato residents assured of relocation

By: Delta Dyrecka Letigio - 3 years ago

VULNERABLE. Sitio Bato in Barangay Ermita is typical of areas classified as fire prone due to houses built too close to each other. | CDN file photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The over 2,000 families in Sitio Bato, Barangay Ermita, Cebu City that will be affected in the controversial Carbon Market Modernization Project are assured of proper relocation.

Engineer Dante Arcilla, head of the Division on the Welfare of the Urban Poor, said that part of the curative measures that Mayor Michael Rama was proposing to the council over the Joint Venture Agreement (JVA) was the plan for the families’ relocation.

Arcilla said that city government faced the biggest backlash over the JVA it signed with Megawide Construction Corp. because the city actually had an ordinance declaring Sitio Bato as a social housing site.

This is also why there remains a persisting resistance from stakeholders over the project because the original plan would demolish the houses in Sitio Bato and develop the area into a commercial space.

However, the original JVA does not specify the relocation of the residents, only that it will be the city government’s responsibility to do so.

Arcilla said that he could not yet divulge the exact relocation plans for the Sitio Bato residents because the proposed supplemental Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) had yet to be tackled in the City Council.

However, he said that the general plan would be to build a socialized housing facility such as a tenement that would become the relocation for the families.

“It is still under review ang MOA, so we wait for that. Pero nagsocial econ na mi diha. It is being negotiated now, most likely tukuran nato silag social housing,” said Arcilla.

(The MOA is still under review, so we wait for that. But we have already done social econ there. It is being negotiated now, most likely we will build a social housing project for them.)

The location of this socialized tenement housing is still unclear, but it will be constructed simultaneously with the new Carbon Market.

The social housing for Sitio Bato residents is part of the city-wide housing projects that city government is planning.

At least 10 more socialized housing sites are planned all over the city in order to relocate informal settlers in areas much more conducive to building communities.

Mayor Michael Rama also said in previous statements that while the city would push through with the Carbon Market modernization project, it would never leave behind the affected stakeholders such as the vendors and the residents of Sitio Bato.