Gov’t to give in-city housing to over 100,000 urban poor families

MANILA, Philippines—After decades of living precariously close to esteros, rivers and the bay in populous Metro Manila, more than 100,000 urban poor families will benefit from the government’s program to provide permanent city housing for them.

“(Budget) Secretary (Florencio) Abad confirmed that P5 billion was already released and now we are demanding that the government must start building on-site housing,” said Princess Asuncion of the Urban Poor Associates (UPA).

The construction of “on-site’’ medium-rise buildings or “in-city’’ relocation sites for the informal settlers has been on the drawing board of government agencies after President Aquino approved a minimum P38-billion budget for the five-year project, Secretary Joel Rocamora said in an interview.

“We’re determined to make it happen,” said Rocamora, chairman of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC), an agency under the Office of the President and part of the multi-agency presidential task force tasked to implement the program.

The government is targeting 106,000 families of informal settlers in “danger zones,” those living in lean-tos near estuaries, waterways, under bridges, by the rivers, and on stilts over the bay, and under immediate danger of being swept away or drowning during heavy rain. They constitute a fifth of the estimated 500,000 informal settlers in the metropolis.

Rocamora said the groundbreaking would begin before the yearend.

Estero residents and the UPA broached the idea of an “on-site” housing, akin to the slum upgrading of the Bangkok Bang Bua Canal in Thailand that benefited 3,400 families, during a meeting with Aquino in Malacañang in 2010. They brought with them architect Jun Palafox’s design.

The design of houses along the esteros, which Palafox did in consultation with the estero residents, would not interfere with the cleaning of the waterways, UPA said.

UPA holds the view that the urban poor and the cleaning of the river are not mutually exclusive of one another, and asserts that the poor’s shelter rights are “as essential as the rehabilitation of the waterways.’’

Where possible, three to four-story buildings would be built close to the estuaries or waterways, otherwise, the informal settlers would be moved to stable relocation sites within the city, Rocamora said.

The idea is to implement the law, which provides for on-site housing for informal settlers, and avoid the practice of relocating them to housing sites several kilometers away, where there is no water, school or jobs available, according to Rocamora.

“It’s important to emphasize the fact where before the policy of the previous administration is to dump them in faraway areas like Calauan, Laguna, or Rodriguez, Rizal. The policy of this administration is on-site or in-city housing. There’s a sea-change in policy,’’ he said.

“And I don’t think there has ever been this much money for dealing with informal settlers,” Rocamora said. The government will be offering affordable amortization for the informal settlers.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said that the budget for the housing for the informal settlers in the next five years might exceed P38 billion.

“The President approved the release of P10 billion for 2011. And he is committed to investing P10 billion every year until the last household is assisted,” he said by text.  “The objective is to move them to safer areas through on-site, in-city resettlement programs.”

The informal settlers would have to be organized so they could participate in the selection of builders, and the design of the buildings, and eventually, so they could maintain the buildings, and keep them from deteriorating quickly, Rocamora said.

Once the program gets underway, the government plans to launch it in Estero de San Miguel, a two-kilometer tributary of the Pasig River near Malacañang where hundreds of families had been living for decades, as well as three barangays (villages) close to the Tullahan River in Quezon City.