BAGUIO CITY – Some 58
houses within the 5,000-square meter BIBAK property along Harrison road here
will be demolished starting tomorrow since
final reprieve granted to them by an inter-agency committee will expire
today (Oct. 15.)
Mayor
Mauricio G. Domogan bared this saying there is no legal impediment in
demolition of the illegal structures.
He added the
city demolition team and volunteers are ready to dismantle remaining structures
in the area after the lapse of two months of extension granted them by the
inter-agency committee.
“Some of
the informal settlers again came to our office recently and requested for
another extension of the reprieve granted to them that is why we informed them
that a final extension will be unlikely. We had been criticized for the grant
of the final extension of the reprieve to allow them to thresh out the issues
related to their proposed relocation site and we hope they were able to do so,”
Domogan said.
The BIBAK
property is under the care of the Office of the President through the Cordillera
office of the National Commission on Indigenous peoples after it was vacated by
the Cordillera Regional Assembly when the Cordillera bodies were given a P1
operating budget by Congress in 2001.
Domogan
said the decision to grant another extension to the informal settlers should be
unanimous from the members of the inter-agency committee composed of the
regional directors of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources
(DENR), NCIP-CAR and himself, but on his part, he will no longer allow any extension
because the informal settlers were given all the leeway to work out the details
of their relocation site through the past several years.
The
inter-agency committee gave the informal settlers until Oct. 15, 2017 to
voluntarily demolish their illegal structures and to immediately stop all their
business activities in the area.
The
remaining illegal structures in the government property after the expiration of
the reprieve will be demolished.
Domogan said
the reason why the inter-agency committee allowed the voluntary demolition of
the illegal structures by the informal settlers themselves is to allow them to
salvage whatever material which they could use to rebuild their structures in
their proposed relocation site.
Representatives
of the Presidential Commission on the Urban Poor (PCUP) also intervened in the
grant of the final reprieve to the informal settlers because they assured the
members of the inter-agency committee that the occupants of the illegal
structures within the BIBAK property will leave the area once details of their
relocation site shall have been finalized with the lot owner considering that
the possible relocation area identified for them is within the jurisdiction of
La Trinidad town. -- Dexter A. See
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