Cebu City fire victims want to collect on promised relocation, aid

VICTIMS of fire incidents that hit communities of mostly informal settlers in Cebu City in 2011 and 2014 yesterday asked the city government to address unfulfilled promises of relocation and cash benefits.

Many of the 136 households displaced by a fire that hit Palma Street in Barangay San Roque in 2014 said they would be left with nowhere to go in the wake of the city government’s plan to re-block the area and cut in half the number of residents who could rebuild on the fire site.

On the other hand, around 300 victims of the fire that razed an urban poor area in Sitio Ponce 2 in Barangay Carreta in 2011 lamented that they have yet to receive the cash aid promised by City Hall.

The fire victims trooped to City Hall yesterday and met with some members of the city council to seek their help, said Councilor Margarita “Margot” Osmeña.

Virgil Yutrago, a victim of the Palma Street fire, said they went to the Division for the Welfare of the Urban Poor (DWUP) office on Tuesday and were told that out of the 136 families displaced by the fire, only 61 would be accommodated after re-blocking.

“Asa man nila ipamutang ang uban (Where will they put the others)?” he asked.

Although the area has been re-blocked and subdivided, the fire victims continue to live in tents as they were not allowed to rebuild on the same site pending a final decision from the national government.

DWUP chief Collin Rosell said that since the lot is a public land, it was the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) that subdivided the area.

However, he said, the DENR would only allow 61 houses to be built on the area since the property is only about 1,020 square meters.

The Carreta fire victims, meanwhile, claimed that most of them have yet to receive the P10,000 cash aid promised by the city government even if they had already submitted the required documents to DWUP.