CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña maintained that the City Government owns the Osmeña Shrine in Barangay Kalunasan.
His pronouncement came after Councilor Jose Daluz III said the City no longer owns the 42,687-square-meter property since it was donated to the Evangelical Coalition of Cebu Inc. (ECCI) in 2010.
In his news conference last Thursday, the mayor denied donating the shrine during his previous term and said that the City will keep the property.
“It was never really transferred. The title is still under us. We’ll keep that. I’m not going to push through with the interfaith (cemetery). There’s no deed of donation,” he said.
ECCI would have wanted to use the property as cemetery but some of the neighboring community opposed it.
The mayor also said no relocation will be provided to the settlers inside the shrine and that he has no interest in negotiating with them.
He explained that granting the families’ request for a relocation before their houses should be demolished would mean that the City tolerates the construction of illegal structures in public lands.
He went on to deny having given the families the go-signal to reside in the area during the months leading to last May’s elections.
“I don’t want to negotiate with liars. I’ll just concentrate on other things that I can do. They are just riding on the sentiments that I am anti-poor. But it’s not good public policy to relocate new squatters,” he said.
Osmeña said he was not in the position to allow the families to live inside the shrine as he was still a private individual back then.
Although the property is named after his family, the mayor said it does not mean he owns it.
“Maybe they are poor. Maybe they don’t deserve to be poor. But you have to understand my position. I don’t want to deal with liars because they said that I authorized them to move in there,” he said.
Since Monday, the Prevention, Restoration, Order, Beautification and Enhancement, upon the order of Osmeña, has been clearing around 300 illegal structures built inside the property.
The settlers went to City Hall last Wednesday and asked that they be given a relocation site before their houses will be demolished.
They also plan to meet with the ECCI to check the lot’s donation and discuss their situation.
The settlers inside the shrine started building their houses there last March.
