ILLEGAL settlers in Sitio Russia, the planned site for a Seafood Processing Plant, are ready to accept the Dagupan City government’s relocation offer, according to barangay chairman Ronald Torio.

Torio said the residents, who earlier resisted the offer, have come to him to express their desire to take the housing units being built by the government in a two-hectare area in nearby Sitio Bagong Barrio as settlement.

With a P5.2 million budget, the government plans to build 65 houses, of which 30 have already been completed last week.

There are 65 households identified to be entitled to the resettlement package based on a tagging operation conducted by the City Engineering Office.

Torio said the residents who have expressed willingness to be relocated are still reluctant to come out in the open for fear of reprisal from the other residents.

At the same time, the barangay chairman believes the rich migrants among the illegal settlers, do not deserve the offer since what they built were vacation houses in the beach area.

These affluent settlers, according to Torio, have been manipulating the poor in the community and using them as a front for the civil case against the city government that is still pending before of Regional Trial Court Judge Genoveva Maramba.

The illegal settlers have reportedly replaced Atty. Allan Paguia with Atty. Victoria Cabrera as their new lawyer to represent them in the case.

“We are encouraging residents of sitio Russia to personally visit the relocation site, which I believe is much suitable for them, being 200 meters away from the seashore,” he said.

Torio said the government is offering a good relocation arrangement and the illegal settlers should take up the offer.

The housing units in the relocation area will be given out free, with outright water and electric connection and livelihood projects will be developed within the community.

Torio doubts
Rudio’s claim

Meanwhile Torio, expressed disbelief over the claim of Regional Trial Court Judge Robert Rudio of Branch 40 that he is “landless” and is entitled to the supposed public land he is occupying.

Rudio is among the illegal settlers listed by the Dagupan City government’s Task Force on Housing and Urban Resettlement.

Torio, in an interview with The PUNCH, said he found contradiction in the judge’s assertion that he “is not a squatter” while acknowledging that he is an informal settler on public land who’s legally entitled to apply and claim a public land since he is “landless”.

The Task Force defines an informal settler as a squatter.

Rudio insists he is occupying a public land which is outside the coverage of Proclamation No. 98 issued by then President Diosdado Macapagal in the 1960s declaring the foreshore land of Bonuan as a national park.

The Task Force stated that the area covered by the proclamation comprises 72 hectares, starting from Bonuan Sabangan up to the boundary of Dagupan and San Fabian, which is across the Cayanga River and therefore, includes the land on which Rudio built a two-storey house.—LM

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