MCWD owes P44.5 million for encroaching on 851.126 square meters worth of Capitol-owned lots along Osmeña Blvd. and in the Banilad area for 48 years, according to Sugbo News, the Capitol’s media arm, citing Capitol consultant Yvonne Gomos.
In a meeting at the Capitol on Friday, June 2, 2023, Gomos said Visayan Electric Company owed P13.3 million for its encroachment on 473.49 square meters of Capitol property along Osmeña Blvd. since 2004.
But while MCWD reportedly agreed to pay the amount it was assessed, Visayan Electric Company is disputing its assessment.
According to the report, MCWD chairman Jose Daluz III, who was accompanied at the meeting by general manager Edgar Donoso, agreed to pay the amount but sought more liberal payment terms from Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia.
Garcia responded by advising Daluz to write a proposal to the Provincial Economic Enterprise Council, which approves all enterprise agreements that the Capitol enters into. Garcia chairs the council.
According to the Capitol, MCWD’s assets, including wells and distribution channels, encroached on 851.126 square meters of Capitol properties in two areas — 743.206 square meters along Osmeña Blvd. and 107.92 square meters in Banilad — from 1975 when the water district was created.
Gomos placed the raw land lease rate as of March 2023 at P400 per square meter along Osmeña Blvd. and P500 per square meter in the Banilad area.
She said they then worked backward, using the inflation rates of previous years, to determine the lease rates for the earlier years of encroachment by the utility firms.
According to the Capitol report, Visayan Electric president Raul Lucero said he would still have to consult the company’s board of directors on their next course of action, since they have questions on the way their payable was computed.
The Capitol multiplied the rate per square meter by the total land area encroached on, and then further multiplied this by the height of the power utility’s 14 primary and 13 secondary utility poles in the area. The poles are as tall as 13 meters.
Provincial legal officer Donato Villa said the Capitol may charge for the use of the airspace covered by the utility’s poles because as landowner, it “has the right not just to the ground space but also to the underground and airspace.”
The governor has been demanding rent from establishments along Osmeña Blvd. which she said had been encroaching on Capitol-owned lots for years.
She has also asked the Department of Public Works and Highways 7, whom she also accused of encroachment in the area, to provide “just compensation” for the Capitol lots encroached on and that will now be affected by the ongoing construction of the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (CBRT).
The first package of the CBRT covers a distance of 2.38 kilometers from the Cebu South Bus Terminal on N. Bacalso Ave. to the front of the Capitol building on Osmeña Blvd.
Some establishments along Osmeña Blvd. have challenged the Capitol’s right to collect rent from them, calling it “unconstitutional.”
Cornelio Mercado, legal representative of the six building owners along Osmeña Blvd. that protested the Capitol’s charging of rent, said a lessor-lessee relationship must be a consensual and bilateral contract, and cannot be forced upon by an institution, even the Provincial Government.
Last May 18, the Capitol responded by giving the protesting building owners 15 days from receipt of its demand letter, to demolish their encroaching structures and pay 44 years’ worth of rent, or face ejectment charges. / CTL