CEBU, Philippines - A group of beneficiaries who was able to make partial payment of province-owned lots in Barangay Luz, Cebu City which they have been occupying asked Governor Gwendolyn Garcia to reopen the ten-year term contract and to maintain the 1990 applicable appraisal value.
The group claimed that the ten-year contract signed in 1994 was not fully consummated by actual lot occupants when then governor Pablo Garcia reportedly suspended it in 1996 to 1999.
The group's spokesperson, Socrates Pepino, wrote in a letter to the Capitol that they paid seven years of the then 10-year contract.
Barangay Luz is one of the 11 barangays in Cebu City where province-owned lots were covered by the Ordinance 93-1 which expired in 2004. Others were barangays Apas, Busay, Camputhaw, Capitol Site, Carreta, Kalunasan, Lahug, Lorega, Mabolo and Tejero.
A total of 4,148 actual occupants in the said area were qualified as beneficiaries of 93-1 but only 1,407 have fully paid; 1,211 have partially paid and 1,631 did not enter into contract to purchase the lot.
The contract was supposed to expire in 2004 but Pepino said the actual implementation of the term of the ten-year conditional sale has not yet been consummated.
Pepino discussed that the passage in 1996 of the Cebu City Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance negated the 93-1 beneficiaries when the province-owned lots were converted into prime commercial lots.
Pepino said that an amended city zoning ordinance formulated the land use of province-owned lots covered by 93-1 as socialized housing site, prompting the re-opening of 93-1 to actual occupants.
In 2004, the Provincial Board passed PO 2004-2 amending PO 93-1 to purposely to extend the ten-year term to 15 years but this did not materialize when then newly elected Governor Gwendolyn Garcia asked for a review of the status of beneficiaries of 93-1.
“The lady governor must provide us the remaining three years in favor to us PO 93-1 beneficiaries,” the letter further reads.
Garcia's direction of resolving the remaining 93-1 issue before her term will end next year is anchored on the successful negotiation between the homeowners in Barangay Busay, the Province of Cebu and the Office of Vice President Jejomar Binay.
A memorandum of understanding was just signed last week and will serve as template to resolve the same problem in other areas.— (FREEMAN)