Cebu City proposes building for families BRT will displace

Around 85 families in Cebu City are set to be affected once the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project is implemented.

In an interview yesterday, Francisco “Bimbo” Fernandez, executive assistant of Mayor Tomas Osmeña, said that the City Government has asked the World Bank (WB) to approve the relocation action plan that the City prepared.

Meanwhile, City Administrator Nigel Paul Villarete said that they have yet to receive any formal communication from either the Department of Transportation (DOTr) or the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) on the status of the Cebu BRT project.

Villarete said that the Investment Coordination Committee (ICC) of NEDA is set to meet by the end of the month and come up with an official pronouncement about the Cebu BRT project.

‘No need to worry’

Last April, DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade and Presidential Assistant for the Visayas recommended cancelling the Cebu BRT for various reasons, including the delays incurred and the fact that Cebu City’s roads are too narrow for it.

This month, however, the DOTr included a BRT in its “basket of solutions” for Metro Cebu’s traffic, but on the condition that it will be implemented only on roads with at least three lanes in both sides. Also on the list are a monorail in Mactan and a mass transit system from Carcar to Danao.

Part of the City’s preparation concerns the families, most of whom are illegal settlers, living near a bridge in Barangay Sambag I and in Barangay Mambaling.

These areas are part of the 23-kilometer Cebu BRT route.

Still viable

“We already submitted that report to the World Bank and there’s no need to worry because it was already identified before and was part of the BRT project already,” Fernandez said.

If approved, the City will build a five-storey building in Barangay Lorega where the displaced families can move.

He added that they will be compensated for the loss of income caused by the transfer.

As for the transport system itself, Villarete said they have prepared a letter to remind DOTr of the pending aspects of the projects once the national government will give the go-signal to implement it fully.

“The official status of the project is that there was a request for a cancellation last April 11 and NEDA-ICC has ruled that it needs a study to be conducted to prove that it’s not doable. Personally, I’m still 100 percent confident of the technical viability of the project and the World Bank is strong in its opinion that it’s viable,” Villarete said.