Leonardia vows to improve basic utilities at relocation site
BACOLOD CITY — Mayor Evelio R. Leonardia will work on the improvement of the basic utilities, roads and the visibility of some Bacolod cops at the existing Granada-Vista Alegre (Abada-Escay) relocation site.
He met yesterday with the residents of the said relocation site along with several department heads of concerned government agencies including Bacolod City Police Director P/Supt. Celestino Guarra to present its plans and programs on the existing and the future relocation sites of Bacolod City.
Leonardia said his development projects will include the road concreting and improvement including the improvement of water and power utilities.
Leonardia said that there will be policemen who are informal settlers themselves who will be given relocation spaces in the existing relocation site and they will be assigned there to help maintain peace and order.
There will be at least ten cops, Leonardia said.
He also said that giving relocation sites to the ever increasing and growing number of squatters in the city is part of his development agenda since he became Mayor in 1995, 2004 and up to the present.
In 1995, the number of squatters has already reached more or less 40,000, the reason why they entered into a joint venture with St. Rafael Development Corporation which led to the purchase of a vast area of land at Fortune Towne.
The city has saved more or less P30 to P35 million that time. It became the subject of an Ombudsman case but they were vindicated because of the huge savings.
In 2004, the Abada-Escay relocation site was born and currently, more than 1,300 families live in the area. There are still more than 400 spaces available.
It also took 24 years for the Handumanan relocation site to have its road concreted. But he was instrumental in the concreting of those roads, he said.
Leonardia believes that it was the right thing to do to purchase the additional relocation sites for the informal settlers of Bacolod.
“We believe that we did the right thing on the squatters, but our detractors feel, it was wrong,” he said.
The residents at the existing relocation site also believed that the city just did the right thing and they were very happy that more development projects will come their way.
