An ordinance establishing a comprehensive and sustainable development and shelter program and services for poverty alleviation of informal settlers of Bacolod City, was passed by the Bacolod Sangguniang Panlungsod on second reading Wednesday.

The ordinance, authored by Councilor El Cid Familiaran and co-authored by Councilors Dindo Ramos, Caesar Distrito, Em Ang, Mona Dia Jardin, Archie Baribar and Roberto Rojas, provides for the creation of a Bacolod Local Housing Board that will monitor all evictions and demolitions.

It said there are innumerable national laws, presidential executive orders and proclamations, memoranda, circulars, local executive orders, ordinances and resolutions, aimed to provide adequate program and services for the poor and homeless citizens, adding that the city needs to come up with a comprehensive sustainable shelter program and services to protect the basic rights of the homeless informal settlers against eviction, demolition, and upon transfer to relocation sites or in a place of their choice.

It said the BLHB in coordination with the City Planning and Development Office will create a City Registration Committee which will conduct a survey of the underprivileged and homeless citizens in Bacolod City, including the marginalized fisherfolk within six months from the effectivity of the ordinance.

The committee will include two representatives from non-government organizations servicing the urban poor in the city, it also said.

For planning purposes, the Bacolod Local Housing Board in coordination with the City Assessor’s Office will conduct an inventory of all lands in Bacolod, especially those that are occupied by informal settlers, the ordinance said.

Board will be composed of the mayor as chairman, Sangguniang Panlungsod Committee on Urban Poor and Relocation chairman, and representatives from Gawad kalinga, Habitat for Humanity, three representatives from an NGO working for urban poor upliftment, three representatives from the Bacolod Urban Poor Council, a representative from the City Planning and Development Office and Bacolod Housing Authority.*CGS

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