Central Command transfers to Mactan before December

CEBU, Philippines - Before the yearend, the Armed Forces of the Philippines Central Command (Centcom) headquarters will be transferred from Cebu City to Mactan Island.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. announced this after he and Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia met in a closed-door meeting yesterday afternoon.

Teodoro flew from Zamboanga to Cebu to discuss with Garcia how the 80-hectare lot being occupied by the military in Barangay Apas, Cebu City could be reverted back to the Capitol.

The governor has been moving to recover provincial properties in the city, including the military camp, which the Capitol could earn from.

A memorandum of agreement will be signed this October 12 for the implementation of the proper turnover to the provincial government, Teodoro said.

“We will stay in Cebu,” the defense chief added. 

The Cebu Provincial Board, in 2002, revoked the Capitol’s donation of the 80- hectare lot to the Centcom. The move followed eight years of warning and notices that also failed to settle an ownership dispute.

Also, the Capitol found out in 1994 yet that Centcom was not using 59 of the 80 hectares donated in 1959.

One the provisions in the donation by then governor Jose Briones, provides that all unused lots would be reverted to the provincial government.

During the visit of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2007, she said that it was then AFP chief of staff Hermogenes Esperon, who recommended that the Centcom headquarters be transferred to Mactan because of its strategic location. The engineering brigade will however be moved to Tuburan. — Garry B. Lao/WAB (THE FREEMAN)