Luz-Lahug boundary dispute hearing reset

CEBU – The hearing of the petition to declare the areas where the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino and Grand Convention Center are situated as part of barangay Luz has been postponed to February next year.

Councilor Gerardo Carillo, head of a City Council committee of three tasked to hear the petition of Luz barangay officials, did not explain the reason why he postponed the hearing. The other two members of the committee are councilors Raul Alcoseba and Rodrigo Abellanosa. Lahug barangay captain Mary Ann delos Santos said she does not have any problem with the postponement of the hearing because she is confident nothing will happen to the claim of Luz officials headed by barangay captain Nida Cabrera.

The supposed proceeding two weeks ago was for the marking of evidence that will be taken up during the future hearings, but this was cancelled by Carillo.

Since it was Mayor Tomas Osmeña who was reportedly behind the proposal to remove the area from the territorial jurisdiction of Lahug, there were speculations that Carillo also wants the hearing of the case to be done after the mayor comes back to Cebu.

Osmeña is still in Houston, Texas undergoing treatment for cancer in his urinary bladder. Cabrera had submitted several affidavits of elderly residents of the barangay who claimed that the area where the five-star hotel now stands used to be part of sitio Wakwak, one of the sitios of barangay Luz.

But Delos Santos said the claim of Cabrera is not supported by concrete facts because the present map of the city showed that the place belongs to Lahug and not to Luz.

Even the Cebu City website shows that Archbishop Reyes Ave. is the boundary of Lahug and Luz, but Cabrera argued that city website’s map is not accurate and probably got its data from other sources and not from the old maps. — Rene U. Borromeo/BRP (THE FREEMAN)