The Cebu City Council approved for the second time an ordinance imposing a one-year moratorium on all demolition andclearing operations by the city government.
In yesterday’s session, Councilor Alvin Dizon, who authored the ordinance, said the one-year moratorium benefits both the settlers who will be displaced by demolition and the city government.
“When one thinks about it, the city government does not even deserve such an allowance but since both parties need to be ready, we are considering this option,” Dizon said.
In approving the ordinance, which was vetoed last year by suspended Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, the council included a requirement to identify specific people who will be covered by the moratorium.
City Councilor Gerardo Carillo said those who covered by the ordinance have been included in the Division for the Welfare of the Urban Poor survey conducted in 2011 and 2012.
Carillo said the DWUP survey included 10,000 settlers in the city’s danger zones.
But urban poor groups who attended yesterday’s session appealed to the council to ask DWUP to conduct another survey.
They said coverage of the ordinance should extend to settlers who lived in danger zones after the 2011-2012 survey.
Dizon said he hopes acting Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella will approve the ordinance.
Labella said he will examine the ordinance to make sure that it doesn’t violate the Urban Development Housing Act (UDHA), which Mayor Rama used as basis for vetoing the previous ordinance.
Back then, the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) bloc in the council failed to secure the numbers to override Rama’s veto.
Labella, as acting mayor, has 10 days to either approve or veto the ordinance.