Cebu: The Place I Call Home

I begun to understand what life is all about 15 years ago when I moved back to my hometown after leaving it for a year. Cebu is considered to be the queen city of the south and a lot of people are calling it their “home”. but literally it’s not. This is what I called “urban poor” living. All I know is that my parents worked hard to take us back to Cebu and find a place to stay. From time to time people came to our house and asked us to move out, or if we want to stay we need to pay rental fees of the lot. My father would never bother to do what they asked because for him nobody owns the lot we so called “our home” they can’t even show us the papers proving they are the legal owners.


Many built their homes; and our place became crowded. Organizations were formed, I felt so many downfall, the government promised to help solve our situation just like relocations but they only do meeting for urban poor residents during election periods; we received letters that we only have a month to vacate the place and later another extensions; the tension that the people are experiencing are somewhat indescribable, some might even say they would burn out our place just to make us leave.



I’m not blaming the government but I just want them to see the real situation of urban poor in Cebu, the leaders that we have today are so focused with globalization, tourism and industry when they don’t even see the problems to the place they govern.


For sure I’m not the only one who goes through this kind of living, I just want this to be an eye opener that not all Cebuanos have luxurious and sumptuous life, we may be the Queen City of the South but what lies beneath within are the real people who’s fighting to exist for their hometown.