Iloilo to resettle squatters
THE CITY GOVERNMENT will relocate to higher ground squatters along the city’s creeks and rivers to keep them safe during typhoons and flash floods.
“We will declare these areas as danger zones and evacuate the informal settlers,” Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas said.
Treñas said he instructed the Iloilo City Urban Poor Affairs Office and the Crisis Management Center to conduct an inventory of the informal settlers so they could be transferred to the city government’s relocation sites.
Last week, the Jaro River and several creeks in Iloilo City overflowed due to incessant rains.
The city government declared 40 villages under a state of calamity after floods displaced over 40,000 persons, most of them residing along river and creeks.
Social Welfare and Development Office head Clarita Dignadice said that last week’s flooding in the districts of Jaro, La Paz, Arevalo and Mandurriao affected 9,315 families.
Urban Poor Affairs Office chief Roy Firmeza said there were about 2,910 illegal structures along the Jaro River and the city’s various creeks such as the Dungon, Upper and Lower Ingore, Mansaya and Budburan creeks.
Firmeza said the squatters, especially those living near the approaches of bridges and under the bridges, would be among the first to be moved.
“We have to ensure the safety of our constituents living along these areas,” he said.
Firmeza said the city’s relocation site in the village of San Isidro, Jaro district could accommodate as many as 1,900 families. (David Israel Sinay/Inquirer.net/23 May 2008)
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