Residents of houses hit by last week’s fire in sitio Warwick, in barangay Ermita in Cebu City won’t be allowed to rebuild their houses in the area.
Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama said he plans to “restore” the Warwick Plaza which used to occupy the area in the early 1900s.
Vendors, Rama said, will have to be relocated to the nearby Freedom Park.
“Let’s restore what can be restored,” Rama said during his press conference yesterday.
Some fire victims started putting up makeshift structures in the area to secure the space they used to occupy.
“Kinsay nag hatag nila ug authority nga mo tukod ug balik (Who gave them the authority to rebuild there)?” Rama said when sought for comment.
Rama said barangay officials were already briefed of his restoration plans and will have to prevent any reconstruction attempts at the fire site.
In a meeting he called Saturday evening, Rama instructed city legal officer Jerone Castillo and market office head Raquel Arce to do an inventory of stalls destroyed in Saturday morning’s fire.
The inventory also includes those not affected by the fire.
Open space
A book titled A Glimpse of Old Cebu by Lucy Urgello showed that Warwick was an open space in 1915.
It was part of a barracks which housed American soldiers. Across it is the Freedom Park.
“If only you can bring this back,” Rama said.
Rama wanted the Warwick barracks now occupied by vendors stalls and some shanties restored into a park with some commercial spaces.
The restoration project may be done through a Build Operate Transfer (BOT) scheme.
Some interested contractors already came to him to discuss his planned project shortly after his election in 2010.
His restoration plans include the restoration of the Freedom Park into an area that used to be a venue for religious and political debates in the old times.
A structure will have to be built to serve as second floor to the park and will also be used to house vendors. An escalator can also installed there, he said.
The fire on Saturday, Rama said, was an indication that the city should start its restoration plans starting with the Warwick Barracks.
Restoration of the Freedom Park will follow afterwards, he said.
Restoration, he said, will address “heritage decay” and “historical obsoletism” in Cebu.
‘Sacrifice’
He is pleading vendors to “sacrifice” and cooperate with the city’s plan to transfer them to Freedom Park.
“The vendors don’t own it (Warwick Barracks). We have to think of what is fair and equitable. All of them should be willing to sacrifice,” the mayor told reporters.
Rama said he already directed City Engineer Jose Marie Poblete to spearhead the restoration of the Warwick barracks and Freedom Park.
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