Land swap? For whose benefit?

There are times when public issues are so thrust upon us that we have to take sides and as a result, tear our hearts. In some instances, such issues appear to be innocuous and without controversy. Only when we take a serious look at it that we find ourselves facing a huge dilemma. Such is the case of the present Cebu City administration (and perhaps future ones) vis-a-vis the so-called 93-1 real estate. I foresee that beyond its apparently temperate trimmings, it will become a socio-political controversy of unimaginable proportions. For whose benefit will it be?

Let me start with what I perceive to be an innocent background. When I, with my family, came here in 1965, Cebu City was still largely rural in its appearance. While already a chartered city of about three decades then, the place was as rustic and provincial as could be gleaned from  such sights as tartanillas running on Colon Street and Lahug a vastly empty space dotted only by few classical and ornately designed houses like that of the Battig Piano School.

Since the city was undoubtedly the most prosperous locality in southern Philippines, it, to me, began to attract its heavy load of migrants. They all came far flung towns of Cebu island and other provinces in search of proverbial greener pasture. Upon their descent, they found no place on which to put the roof to cover their heads with other than the vacant spaces they did not yet know to be owned by the provincial government. All they cared for was their own personal interest, never mind the interest of the legal owner. Thru the years, their numbers grew to become the biggest assemblage of informal settlers. What was unfortunate was that while most of them eventually succeeded in their economic endeavors as to be able to erect comfy and sturdy residential homes, they thought that their unlawful incursion would be rewarded with the government’s ceding to them the lots they squatted on.

Valuable real estate assets of the provincial government located in prime areas within Cebu City became the private domain of squatters. Came the late Gov Vicente de la Serena, a perceived social democrat. Even if his heart was known to favor the less privileged, he also saw the illegal usurpation of government land worth billions of pesos laid to utter waste. Then, he conceptualized Provincial Ordinance 93-1 as a tool of balancing the interests of the Cebu Province, as the land owner, on one hand and the informal settlers, on the other hand. Under that ordinance, the settlers were supposed to pay nominal sums, in most liberal terms, to own the lots they occupied. But, except for a few, the squatters did not do their part. They refused the generous offer of the province and even rejected an ordinance extending the period of government liberality.

In recent times, the city, in a well-publicized arrangement, entered into an agreement with the province. Billions of pesos worth of city owned commercial parcels of land were swapped for those lots known as 93-1. Even if we assume that the exchange is on a peso-for-peso rate, we look at the specter of the city losing immensely. This is because the provincial assets that are delivered to the city are almost fully occupied by urban dwellers that cannot be ousted from their occupancy and therefore these lots are practically commercially worthless.

 Is it correct that unto the 93-1 settlers these parcels of land be conveyed eventually by the city gratuitously? Meaning, the city grants billions worth of real assets to these informal settlers? Will these land intruders be rewarded with prime properties, for their unlawful act? What about those who have toiled hard to buy their own residences, will they not be deprived of the services of the city simply because huge amounts of city resources are technically funneled to the 93-1 settlers? This is an issue our leaders have to spend sleepless nights on. May their decision redound to the benefit of the majority.