‘Outsiders’ have until today to leave relocation site

By NORA SORINO,
Ric Palahang
and Sita Asequia
GSD-Iligan Bureau .

ILIGAN City–Unacknowledged housing beneficiaries living at Bayanihan Village here have until today to vacate the houses they illegally acquired, a  city official said.

Jake Balanay, chair of the city council’s committee on housing and urban resettlement, said the residents who are not the intended beneficiaries of the resettlement units must leave before they padlock the houses.

It was learned in a conference among stakeholders late last week that there are at least 1,700 units awarded to storm “Sendong” survivors who have yielded their housing units to non-beneficiaries.

However, Balanay made it clear during the conference that there would be no demolitions today. He said they would only be padlocking the housing units that have been illegally occupied.

Also in attendance at the conference were members of Task Force Demolition and Task Force Kamagong. The latter is a composite team of police and soldiers while the former is the city’s demolition team, that would lead and identify structures to be demolished.

Some 200 Bayanihan Village residents, who were not the intended beneficiaries, attended the conference. Although they did not vocally oppose the padlocking scheduled today, they were visibly irate at the sidelines of the conference.

This paper learned that many of the non-housing beneficiaries living in the village are survivors of the “war” in Marawi. They claimed that Balanay promised them they would be relocated to another area in the city.

Acmad Musa, purok president of Bayanihan amd a “Sendong” survivor still living there, said he was deeply concerned for what could happen in their village today.