A total of 472 houses for victims of the 2013 Zamboanga siege have been sold by beneficiaries to outsiders.
Rodrigo Pagotaisidro, City Land Management and Housing Division chief, said the number represents roughly 20 percent of all houses constructed by the government for the siege victims.
Pagotaisidro said he is set to meet with officials from the Zamboanga City Legal Office to study legal remedies against the concerned beneficiaries and those who have purchased the units.
The government has prohibited beneficiaries from selling the houses after the structures were turned over to them over the past years.
Pagotaisidro said they are set to present an affidavit to the existing beneficiaries which will enable the government to take over the houses if these are transferred or sold to other parties.
Housing division personnel are now making the rounds of the resettlement sites to conduct an inventory of the houses and its occupants.
The current issue involving the government housing units is the latest anomaly plaguing Zamboanga City’s Z3R (Zamboanga City Roadmap to Recovery and Reconstruction) resettlement sites.
In the year 2018, the House of Representatives conducted an investigation on the state of Z3R houses in Zamboanga after learning about anomalies in the construction of houses.
This led to the infamous footwalk bridge collapse where then House Committee on Housing and Urban Development Chairman Albie Benitez, Mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco-Salazar and former Zamboanga District 1 Representative Celso Lobregat and other officials fell into murky waters at a resettlement site in Barangay Rio Hondo in Zamboanga.