‘Squatters’ proliferation blamed on brgy execs

ILOILO CIT , Philippines  â€” The Iloilo City Urban Poor Affairs Office (ICUPAO) blamed barangay officials for tolerating informal settlers (squatters) resulting in the proliferation of these people at their villages.

ICUPAO director Wilfredo Jurilla said the proliferation of informal settlers in the city, particularly in the barangays, could be regulated and thus prevented through strict monitoring by barangay officials.

DILG’s Memorandum Circular No. 2011-17, addressed to governors, mayors and barangay chairpersons, stated that tolerating informal settlements to build up along esteros, creeks, waterways, riverbanks, and shorelines—resulting in unregulated discharge of domestic wastes—is a violation of this mandate, he said.

Jurilla said permitting informal settlers along railroad tracks, sidewalks or roads, or in garbage dumps, landfills, public cemeteries or in parks and playgrounds is also a violation of the law in the same manner as illegal occupancy of a private or a government lot is a breach of the tenets of land ownership, privacy and development.

Under such mandate, any elective official may be disciplined, suspended or removed from office for gross negligence or dereliction of duty, Jurilla said, adding that ICUPAO already sent copies of this DILG memorandum to all the barangays in the city.

During the time of then Association of Barangay Captains (ABC) president Bobby Divinagracia, Jurilla submitted a draft copy of his proposed ordinance to regulate informal settlers and penalizing barangay officials for tolerating informal settlement.

Jurilla also asked Divinagracia to sponsor the ordinance but then it did not prosper allegedly due to politics. He now says that he will try to reopen this proposed measure to Councilor Joshua Alim, who is the new chairman of ICUPAO replacing former Councilor Eduard Yee.

Jurilla further said “squatting” is some of the major problems of the city government, which in turn lacks enough fund to buy relocation sites for these illegal settlers, others of whom were not really city residents to begin with. More than 11,000 homeless families in this city were on ICUPAO’s waiting list for the availability of relocation sites, under the socialized housing program of the city government.  (FREEMAN)