Members of the urban poor group Kadamay gather in a government housing site in Pandi town, Bulacan province. INQUIRER FILE / NIÑO JESUS ORBETA
Urban poor group Kadamay will not leave the housing units it occupied in Pandi, Bulacan, amid reports that the National Housing Authority (NHA) plans to evict its members by relocating informal settlers to the houses they have claimed as their own.
Kadamay national chair Gloria Arellano slammed the NHA’s plan, which came almost a year after thousands of its members took over the housing site.
“They did not attempt to evict us before because they couldn’t. It would have reflected badly on the administration especially after the grave shortcomings of the government were exposed,” Arellano said in a statement.
“Now, with their smear campaign against Kadamay, suddenly they announce their intent making the poor leave most of the occupied areas. This was part of their plan all along; to continue to profit from socialized housing, save face and justify evictions,” she added.
The leader also asserted that the NHA’s reasoning “does not make sense” as the poor in the area who are already benefitting from the housing program will be evicted if the plan will be implemented.
“Why would you evict the poor who are already from that locality to relocate the poor from Metro Manila? They want to demolish more homes in Manila and evict Kadamay in one move,” she noted.
READ: NHA: Sale of Kadamay house not isolated
The NHA said Monday that 3,295 informal settlers families living along Metro Manila waterways would be relocated to the Pandi housing project.
The move, once implemented, would displace some 6,000 families, Kadamay said.
In March last year, members of Kadamay occupied 5,278 idle low-cost housing units in Pandi as a form of protest against what they called as slow and unproductive pace of the government’s housing program. /cbb