The city government and the Baguio City District Engineering Office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH-BCDEO) already issued the second notices of violation to some 600 owners of structures along Naguilian Road for them to remove the encroachments erected on the road-right-of-way of the national road.
Assistant City Engineer Constancio Ymson, Jr. said the 600 structures along the stretch of the road from the Welcome Arc up to its junction with Bokawkan Road were found to have encroached on the road-right-of-way of the Naguilian Road, thus, owners must voluntarily remove the said encroachments and not await for the city demolition team to implement the dismantling of the structures that encroached on the right-of-way.
The removal of encroachments on sidewalks and roads by the different city governments is pursuant to the mandate handed down by President Rodrigo Duterte coursed through the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) for local officials to help in bringing back the roads and sidewalks to the public.
Earlier, the city government and the DPWH-BCDEO already started the dismantling of the encroachments along Marcos Highway to serve as a warning to owners of all other similarly-situated structures to start removing encroachments on the road-right-of-way of the national road.
Further, similar demolition operations were already conducted along strategic areas of Kennon Road to ensure the continuity and consistency of the city government in implementing the marching orders of the President.
Ymson said the joint task force on encroachments on the road-right-of-way continues to conduct the inspection on the compliance of violators to the 3-notice rule where the city demolition team will remove the encroachments once the building owners will do nothing to dismantle the same after the lapse of the prescribed period for voluntary demolition.
While there are a good number of building owners who complied with the voluntary removal of their encroachments, there were also some property owners who secured temporary restraining orders (TROs) from different city courts that prevented the city demolition team from pursuing the dismantling of the identified encroachments on the road-right-of-way of the different national roads.
Under existing rules and regulations, the city government and the DPWH-BCDEO are mandated to provide building owners who built structures on portions of road-righty-of-way of national roads a 3-notice rule or within a 21-day period, to remove such encroachments and that their failure to do so will compel the city demolition team to dismantle the said encroachments.
Ymson claimed that the third notice will subsequently be issued to the concerned building owners right after the lapse of the second notice of violation for the concerned government agency and the city government to takeover the demolition activities of the identified encroachments on roads and sidewalks.
By Dexter A. See
