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Mayor to ask SM for more time for Brgy 12 residents to relocate

Bacolod Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez (center) meets with the informal settlers of Barangay 12 on Thursday.* Bacolod PIO photo

Bacolod Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez said he will negotiate with SM Prime Holdings Inc. (SMPHI) to give the informal settlers in Barangay 12 enough time to relocate, City Legal Officer Romeo Carlos Ting said Thursday, Nov. 23.

The Bacolod City government has leased 16,875 square meters of its property in Brgy 12 to SMHI for the Manokan Country redevelopment.

The informal settlers in a dialog with the mayor on Thursday asked that they be granted six months before they are relocated.

They were initially expected to be relocated in January as SMPHI is set to begin its development work at the site.

The mayor said a lot of the informal settlers opted to be given land at a relocation site instead of being relocated to the Yuhum multi-storey housing units.

The residents said they cannot afford the Yuhum housing units and they are located away from their sources of livelihood.

The Bacolod Housing Authority reported that there are 141 informal settlers families in the property leased by SMPHI, 60 of which are house owners and the rest are sharers and renters.

The mayor said the numbers are still being validated.

The list could be completed by next week, Ting said.

Dolores Abusejo, 66, said her husband who has lived in Barangay 12 all his life suffered from a stoke and she makes a living selling candy, cigarettes and face masks on the sidewalk.

If they transfer to the Yuhum Housing Village it would be far from her livelihood and they could not afford to pay for a housing unit there, she said.

That is why they would rather be given land at a relocation site, she said.

She is thankful to the mayor for granting them more time before they relocate so the studies of her grandchildren will not be disrupted.*

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