Is Kawit really ours now?

The Cebu City Council wants the City’s lawyers to confirm whether or not a presidential proclamation has, indeed, replaced two agreements the City entered into regarding the administration and ownership of Kawit Island.

In a resolution, Councilor Raymond Garcia also asked the City Legal Office (CLO) to apprise the Council on the legal obligations of the City to the Department of Health (DOH), following Presidential Proclamation 1505.

Universal Hotels and Resorts Inc. (UHRI) has submitted a proposal to the City to enter into a joint venture agreement to develop Kawit Island into an integrated hotel facility, an P18-billion project.

“There is a need to refer this matter to the CLO for the issuance of a legal opinion in order to ascertain true obligations of the City and to guide the Sanggunian into taking the appropriate steps,” reads a portion of the approved resolution.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued Presidential Proclamation 1505 in 2008, which amended Executive Order 43, which was issued in 1904. The latter had declared Kawit Island solely for use as a quarantine zone and maritime hospital by the chief quarantine officer of the health department.

Before the proclamation took effect, the City Government and DOH 7 had signed a MOA in 2007 covering the donation of a 20,000-square-meter lot in the South Road Properties (SRP) and transferring the administration of Kawit Island to the local government.

Kawit Island was later integrated into the 300-hectare SRP.