CentCom lots occupants won’t lose homes – Gwen

CEBU, Philippines —  Occupants of province-owned lots in Barangay Apas, Cebu City need not fear losing their homes as Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia clarified that she will not dispose of any parcel of land from regained properties at the Armed Forces of the Philippines Central Command (AFP-CentCom).

“I do not lay down my cards ahead of time. Rest assured my decision will always be to the benefit of the Cebuanos,” Garcia said of plans for the recently recovered properties from CentCom.

“More revenues for the province so that I can translate this to more infrastructure and services for the Cebuanos without disposing of our hard-earned assets because can you imagine how many years has this taken – from 2007, unya karon pa lang 2022.”

Garcia admonished those occupants who resorted to knee-jerk rants without having a full grasp of the issue.

“Ang ako lang ikasulti, hilom lang sa mo diha, ayaw og daghang kyawkyaw. Ngano gud ato unhan og daghang mga storya nga di mao, uninformed, uneducated and way out of line,” she said.

“There’s always a win-win solution if magtarong lang ta’g storya. So my position is, I will honor the MOU which takes into account the existence of these occupants.”

In 2007, the Capitol and the Department of Defense under the watch of former secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) wherein the CentCom would have to turn over the 16 parcels of land in exchange for Capitol providing funds to replicate the military facility to its identified relocation site.

In the same MOU, Garcia said officials from the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) were among the signatories who recognized that there are occupants in the said lots.

HUDCC, according to Garcia, previously conducted an inventory of the occupants in the province-owned lots in Brgy. Apas, which was then just over a thousand.

During her first term as governor, Garcia said the Capitol had initial conversations with the occupants covered by the 2007 agreement.

“I think they have an association so they were recognized. In fact, proving that they were recognized, HUDCC was also a signatory of the MOU,” Garcia said

To those who were not included in the inventory, Garcia said they should not “antagonize” her. They should instead engage in proper dialogue instead of “playing the victim card”, Garcia added. —  VAB (FREEMAN)