Mar Roxas: Creekside slums being cleared at 200 families a week

Informal settlers living along eight major waterways in Metro Manila are being relocated to safer communities at 200 families every week as part of the government’s flood-control initiatives, according to Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas.

“The relocation of informal settler families from the slums of Metro Manila to government relocation sites offers beneficiaries of  Oplan Likas renewed hope for a better life,” Roxas said in a statement on Saturday.

Oplan Likas, which stands for “Lumikas para Ligtas sa Kalamidad at Sakit,” aims to transfer some 100,000 families living in danger zones to government housing projects in the provinces of Cavite, Laguna and Batangas.

Since the project started last year, Roxas said, a total of 25,000 families had been moved to relocation sites outside the capital.

The Interior secretary expressed confidence that the experience of former slum dwellers who agreed to be transferred to government relocation sites would convince other informal settlers to “start a new life in safer, better communities elsewhere.”

On Friday, Roxas joined Pasay City Mayor Antonino Calixto and Pasay Rep. Emi Calixto-Rubiano in a “send-off ceremony” for 98 families who used to live along Estero Tripa de Gallina in Barangay 156.

The families agreed to move to a relocation site of the National Housing Authority in Barangay Hugo Perez, Trece Martirez City, in Cavite.

Saying state housing projects were located near industrial zones in the provinces, Roxas maintained that there would be job opportunities for the relocated residents.

He said the housing project in Cavite, for example, was built “according to national standards,” and has water and power supply, as well as a school building.