MANILA, Philippines—Tension gripped an old informal settlement in Navotas City as residents barricaded the area in a bid to stop the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) from demolishing their houses Tuesday.

At least four families lost their homes Tuesday morning along R-10 road in Navotas city as DPWH employees carried out an order to demolish some of their houses to give way to a road widening project there.

Residents there put up a barricade to prevent the demolition crew from advancing further after the DPWH dismantled four houses. About 1,000 more families are in danger of losing their houses in the area.

The activist priest, Fr. Robert Reyes, spiritual director of urban poor group Urban Poor Associates, intervened and joined the people’s barricade to ask the DPWH to stop the demolition.

He said in an interview that it would be inhuman and illegal for the National Housing Authority (NHA) to drive the families out of their homes because the government agency has not provided a relocation site for them.

“Several families will be homeless here tonight,” Reyes said in an interview.

Prescilda Juanich, who leads the urban dwellers, said they would leave the area if government could provide them with decent housing.

She said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo promised to relocate them to a resettlement site in Montalban, Rizal.

But nothing happened since that commitment was made, Juanich said. The group representing the squatter families has scheduled a meeting with the NHA on March 4 to discuss relocation plans.

According to Reyes, he earlier talked to Navotas Mayor Toby Tiangco and the DPWH on behalf of the R-10 residents, in order to ask that the informal settlers be given proper relocation before eviction.

But Tiangco told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the city had no say over the national project’s implementation. The project is supervised and funded by the budget of DPWH.

The city government, he said, had approved the certificate of compliance (COC) that green-lighted the DPWH plan to demolish the shanties on site.

Tiangco said the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992 has been tasked with evaluating a COC based on several requirements provided under the law.

“The DPWH has complied with these requirements and so we have no choice but to approve their COC. It is a national government agency and we have no authority over them,” said Tiangco.

If the R-10 residents, Tiangco said, were opposing the demolition due to concerns over their relocation, then they should ask Arroyo to make good on her promise to provide decent housing.

"If President Arroyo promised them relocation, then she has the authority to direct the DPWH to stop the demolition while waiting for the relocation site in Montalban," he added.