Dwellers await resettlement
CEBU CITY (Feb. 2, 2024) – The profiling of Task Force Gubat sa Baha (TF GsB) along Bulacao river has identified at least 500 households whose dwellers will be government’s priority for resettlement.
Retired Army Col. Jefferson Omandam, designated TF GsB Bulacao river commander, told Sugboanon Channel during the task force’s teleradyo program on Jan. 30 that his team had completed the tagging of these households.
“We know who these residents are. All we need to do is to relocate them to the housing facilities that city will build for them,” he also told Cebu City News.
The administration of Mayor Mike Rama is determined to rejuvenate the city’s eight major waterways, including the Bulacao River. It includes the resettlement of residents of dwellings within the three-meter easement zone along the river.
The city plans to build medium-rise buildings for socialized housing, in part through public-private partnerships (PPP) for residents affected in the clearing of the river easements.
Some of these will be built at the planned South Coastal Urban Development (SCUD) along the city’s seafront facing South Road Properties, a project with the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development.
The initiative through TF GsB aims to not only restore the city’s water bodies but also prevent flooding and create a Singapore-like urban environment.
In fact, along Bulacao river, the city had a groundbreaking in April last year for a promenade through PPP that previous river commander, lawyer Gerry Carillo, arranged with Ingenium Works Corp.
While relocation is awaited, Omandam disclosed the focus is now on river maintenance and the upkeep of bio-fences, which act as garbage-collecting barriers.
He said Bulacao river troopers are actively engaged in maintaining the biofence, designed to contain non-biodegradable garbage that some residents along the banks indiscriminately throw into the waterway.
Omandam said his team had also engaged with the newly elected and re-elected officials from the barangays along the Bulacao River, briefing them on the city’s comprehensive river rehabilitation project.
Covering four barangays, namely Pamutan, Toong, Bulacao, and Inayawan, the Bulacao River rehabilitation will affect approximately 12 to 15 families in Pamutan and over a hundred families in Bulacao and Inayawan, he disclosed.
However, he added, Toong is unaffected, as no households reside within the easement zone, classified as non-buildable areas by law.
| PPRMN / cte
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