The Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Association (Creba) in the Philippines bared on Monday its five-point agenda to address the 5.5 million housing backlog in the country, citing the need for a P220-billion fund to be drawn from government agencies.
In a developers’ forum held on Monday at the Metropolitan Club, Creba National Chairman Charlie A.V. Gorayeb cited a five-point agenda essentially consisting of amendments on existing laws, and institution of new legislative measures for housing.
The five-point agenda consists of the following; 1) long term and affordable funds for socialized and economic housing; 2) affordable homes for employees in urban areas; 3) lands for residential, 4) commercial; and 5) industrial development, efficient and local government housing regulations, and full-fledged housing and urban development department.
Under provision for affordable funds for socialized and economic housing, Creba pushed for the a funding mechanism called the Centralized Homebuyer Financing Program (CHFP).
The CHFP is designed for home financing assistance to individual home-loan borrowers with no component for development financing. It is focused on socialized and low-income beneficiaries.
The said program aims to tap the funds allocated to government agencies for housing by virtue of existing laws, which include those governing the Social Security System (SSS), the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), and the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG).
Particularly, the initial contributions proposed under the program will consist of P25 billion each by SSS and GSIS in housing bonds pursuant to their charters, P70 billion invested by the Pag-IBIG fund in housing bonds, and P100 billion from the unused or residual agri-agra funds of banks to be remitted lump sum in exchange for two to five years in housing bonds, for a total of P220 billion.
Further, the amounts set aside by the agencies enabled by existing laws must be integrated and put under a Housing and Urban Development fund, along with other amounts for housing set aside for housing such as government’s community mortgage program (CMP), among other sources.
The fund is proposed to be administered by the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, which is under supervision of the Office of the President, and should be allocated for land and housing development.
The association aims to achieve an annual housing production target of 500,000 units a year, given that the recommended proposals are in place for the next 20 years to cope with future demand.
Currently, the annual production of housing is less than 100,000 units a year, Gorayeb said.