Caylao: No housing

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- City administrator Fer Caylao branded as baseless and unfounded the claim of ABS-CBN program “The Correspondents” that there is a local government housing project in Barangay San Pedro Cutud.

Caylao said that in fact, some of the “professional squatters” in the village have been encouraged by the city government to vacate the land owned by the provincial government and relocate at the Northville Resettlement Center in Barangay Calulut, this city.

Unfortunately, Caylao said some of those who were resettled in Northville had managed to return to San Pedro Cutud.

For quite sometime, he said the city government has been helping the squatters, but the city is not inclined to help them permanently by letting them stay in the said provincial government property.

He said the city was copy furnished a letter of the provincial government asking the squatters to vacate its property in Cutud.



Comfort Rooms

After the television program had been aired, the city received a call from the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) informing them that the national government would provide comfort room units to the concerned squatters through the Department of Public Works and Highways.

Caylao expressed apprehension, because the provision of comfort room units to residents means that the government is legitimizing their stay in the provincial government property.

Asked what would be the best thing to do for what he called “professional squatters,” he said the incoming administration might be forced to award the property.

However, he said, the property is already intended for a housing project of capitol employees.

In an exclusive interview with Ernesto Punzalan who introduced himself as the caretaker of the said provincial government property in Cutud, he said the village folks interviewed in the program “The Correspondents” are not residents of Cutud homesite.