Robredo: P10B needed every year to house Metro squatters

CLARK FREEPORT—Providing shelter to 520,000 squatter families in Metro Manila will cost the government P10 billion a year, according to Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo.

Reading a message from President Aquino during the annual convention of the Organization of Socialized Housing Developers of the Philippines (OSHDP) here on Thursday, Robredo said the government wants to give priority to “on-site or in-city redevelopment [of metropolitan lands] that seek to build and not destroy—[so as not] to take the less fortunate from their places of work.”

Unsafe areas

About 100,000 of these families built their shanties near or on creeks and other unsafe areas, said Robredo.

His agency, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, has been tasked by Aquino to solve the problems of informal settlers in Metro Manila.

The President wants “secured and comfortable homes for the poor,” Robredo told 200 convention participants.

So far, only Quezon City has prepared a shelter plan for squatters, he said.

In his message to the OSHDP convention, Aquino urged the group to “work in partnership with local governments toward the goal of providing affordable housing for the poor.”

Build synergy

Public-private partnership would “bring together strengths from different sectors of our society, and will build a synergy that fuels growth and innovation, benefiting everyone in the process,” Aquino said.

Vice President Jejomar Binay, who also chairs the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, had said that the HUDCC, its member-agencies and local governments proposed to solve the housing backlog of 3.7 million units in 10 years.—Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon