Around Town

Sense of charity

If only for whatever remains of their Christmas spirit or even a sense of charity, the UP-Visayas College should suspend its fencing of its lot where the urban poor settlers are located and take their grievances to court.

With city officials against them, now is not the time for the UP school to insist on their right to claim on the lot which was the site of an unfortunate fire that wiped out the homes of the settlers, some of whom had raised generationns of families in that area. Weighing the case against them is the city government's threat to wihdraw its donation to the school in the South Road Properties (SRP) which would reflect badly on the local school administration.

Going beyond the obvious advantage of scoring political brownie points, fencing the contested area at this time would only result in unwanted aggravation not only on the part of the settlers but on the school administration which would wrestle with Lahug barangay officials and the Cebu City government. So long as the settlers don't encroach near the campus grounds, there is very little to no reason why the settlers shouldn't be allowed to stay at least until a suitable relocation site is prepared for them.

Having said that, it is indeed disconcerting to see scores of urban poor families having to deal with land owners determined to keep their property off limits and it is always the local government units that have to find areas for these families to live in. This goes back to the problem of trying to drive the center of development away from the urban areas into the countryside which it must be said falls squarely on the shoulders of government to resolve.

This is the problem facing the urban poor families and the UP-Visayas college whose ownership of the property occupied by these settlers may still have to be upheld with finality by the courts. The immediate solution would be to maintain the status quo in the area and for all parties concerned to hold a dialogue. Settling the case in court would take sometime which would clearly work against the school and benefit the urban poor families. While justice should work to the benefit of the downtrodden, it also seeks to balance both sides of the conflict in order to arrive at an equitable solution.

Measures should be instituted to ensure that the rights of both settlers and the school are upheld and that no outbreak of violence nor harassment should occur. At the same time, long term solutions aimed at diverting the movement of more families out of the Metro Cebu areas should be worked out so that the problem of dislocation of families would eventually be ironed out.

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