Go in peace or be forcibly evicted.

Unless Dagupan City Mayor Al Fernandez Jr. changes his mind, this is the choice facing residents of sitio Russiain barangay Bonuan Binloc after the Task Force on Housing and Urban Resettlement set August 8 as the final deadline for the clearing of the area to give way to the construction of a P100 million Seafood Processing Plant.

City Engineer Virginia Rosario, chair of the task force, said the city government will have no other alternative but to eject the squatters who built their houses on the government land just beside the 24-hectare National Integrated Fisheries Technology Development Center, forcibly.

Both City Legal Officer George Mejia and City Planning and Development Coordinator Romeo Rosario, confirmed there is no turning back on the timetable for the construction of the Seafood Processing Plant.

The bidding for the construction of the project was recently held in Manila.

The project was the subject of a memorandum of agreement signed early this year by Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, Mayor Alipio Fernandez and a resident representative of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).

The resolution approved by the task force in its meeting on Thursday seeking the demolition of squatter shanties in sitio Russia and all other structures standing on public lands in all of Bonuan Binloc awaits the mayor’s formal approval.

But Fernandez will not likely change his stand after telling officials of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the Finfish Hatcheries, Inc. Companies from Sarangani province on Thursday that the construction of the Seafood Processing Plant should start on or about the last week of August.

BLOODSHED?

Bonuan Binloc Barangay Chairman DiosdadoTorio confirmed that residents of sitio Russia have warned that they will resist any effort to demolish their houses and other structures claiming legal ownership of the land they had been occupying for many years.

Torio said the residents appear ready to arm themselves and have threatened with placards that there would be violence should the city government insist on ejecting them forcibly.

He said his appeals to the affected residents fell on deaf ears insisting on their legal rights. Believed to be prompting the residents to resist are individuals who are not of the place but claim to have acquired legal rights to parcels of land in sitio Russia through tax declarations obtained during the Lim administration.

Torio told the task force that certain Rex Santiago and Francisco Caoile, both non-residents, are the ones primarily agitating squatters of sitio Russia to resist the demolition of their houses.

Torio fully supports the clearing of the site and assured his constituents that the presence of the Seafood Processing Plant will greatly benefit the barangay.

He said the city mayor has assured him that the residents of sitio Russia will be the first priority for employment once the plant is operational.

According to Teddy Villamil, a member of the task force, residents of sitio Russia rejected a proposal to be relocated to the Gawad Kalinga-Bangusville housing project in Bonuan Gueset where 30 housing units were reserved for them.

The task force also reserved a city-government owned land in Bonuan Boquig as an emergency relocation site for the sitio Russia residents and other informal settlers in the city.

Meanwhile, City Legal Officer Mejia said after demolishing squatter shanties in sitio Russia, the demolition of vacation houses illegally constructed in the area will be next.

Mejia said the city government must be firm in this move to avoid allegations of applying double standards in the ejection of squatters in the city.—LM

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