A total of 51 Bacolodnons at the Progreso Village in Barangay Vista Alegre, Bacolod City have already received their certificates of lot awards during a distribution over the weekend.
Progreso Village is an 89-hectare relocation site acquired by the city government.
Bacolod Housing Authority head Ma. Victoria Parreñas said the beneficiaries are informal settlers of the city, adding that each recipient-family received a 64-square-meter lot.
Mayor Evelio Leonardia, who led the distribution of certificates of lot awards along with Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran, told the new lot owners to protect the property given to them.
“Do not give this away,” he said. “The paper you received is not just any letter. It is a symbol that you will have your own land. This is yours.”
He said that when his administration started the relocation site, he and other city officials even faced administrative cases despite their initiative to help the less fortunate.
But they persisted and eventually all the cases related to the project were dismissed, he pointed out.
Bacolod City’s Progreso Village, Parreñas explained, is one of the biggest relocation sites in the country today.
It was established by the current administration in 1996 to give informal settlers in the city a home to call their own.
The village was designed for about 6,500 households. It has basic facilities that include primary and secondary schools.
Familiaran, for his part, told the beneficiaries they are lucky because had they opted to move to a low-cost subdivision, they will have narrower roads unlike at the Progreso Village, where the thoroughfares are wider.
Had there been no COVID, he said, “we would have already used our funds for building the extension of the Bacolod City College here.”
Joining the distribution ceremony were city councilors Renecito Novero, Carl Lopez, Archie Baribar, Israel Salanga, and Dindo Ramos; Barangay Vista Alegre captain Jose Ma. Leandro Norberto de Leon; Barangay 14 captain Karl John Magno; Barangay 18 captain Madeline Diaz./WDJ