It would be one of the biggest tender for this year, in time also for the regional housing caravan mounted by the key shelter agencies under the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC)  in a move to close the 3.7-million units gap in  housing in the country.

Mr. Binay has offered the services of the HUDCC-member agencies to the local government units (LGUs) to assist them in crafting a comprehensive land use plan, formulate a housing program for both the formal sector and the informal settlers, and draw up a site development plan.

“But make it sure that you include risk reduction actions and adaptation measures to climate change,” he told participants of the housing summit  for southern and central Mindanao regions on Thursday.

The summit themed “Strengthening Local Government Units in Housing Delivery and Local Development Planning” was held at the Marco Polo Hotel here.

Shelter agencies, like the National Housing Authority and the Socialized Housing Finance Corp. (SHFC), the newest national shelter agency, showed again their mandates at providing affordable housing to Filipinos but emphasized on danger zones and risk areas as priorities to award relocation sites and extend fund to families and homeless housing associations.

The country’s housing thrust was to tap the local governments to put up housing projects for government employees, private workers and those living in the slums.

The national housing agencies used to tap private developers to implement the housing projects.

Mr. Binay said government hoped that the LGU partnership would help eliminate the backlog in 10 years. He added that aside from the Pag-ibig Fund allocation for this year, “we would expect a big amount, about P5 billion from the Government Service Insurance System, which would transfer its housing financing program to the Pag-ibig”. He said the Social Security System may likewise follow.

Ma. Ana Oliveros, president of the SHFC, said her agency would reduce the number of requirements and trim down the processing time from two years to only six months to encourage more local government participation. Its corporate board met on Monday to identify the items that would be struck down from the list.

The SHFC caters to the localized community mortgage program, where the local governments assist homeless families to form a housing association and lobby for assistance to acquire land and put up their houses.

Local government executives told an open forum in the summit that local governments have distanced themselves in the past on the national government housing program due to stringent documentary and processing requirements, lack of funds to buy lands and subsidize the construction of housing units.

Lawyer Darlene Marie B. Berberabe, chief executive officer of the Pag-IBIG, said the agency would coordinate with the LGUs to craft ways “that would not make them shell out more funds than they should, or not at all”.

“My problem now is how the LGUs would tap this P5-billion fund. Can you help me?,” she told the governors and mayors who attended. Four governors went to the summit for the two regions: Douglas Ra. Cagas of Davao del Sur, Arthur Uy of Compostela Valley, Rodolfo del Rosario of Davao del Norte and Corazon Malanyaon of Davao Oriental.

Del Rosario said he would still evaluate how his province would incorporate the climate change and risk reduction angle being tendered by the housing agencies in offering the housing fund, saying the thrust of Mr. Binay to prioritize the informal settlers would also include those living in danger zones like riverbanks, hill slopes and coastal areas.

But Pantukan Mayor Cesar Sarenas, whose place was the scene of a landslide that killed at least 13 persons and several others missing, said the families living in the high mountain slopes, mostly in the small-scale mining areas, may not be included in the housing program.

“We would focus on the poblacion area because it would be difficult to establish a formal housing settlement in the mountains,” he said. “What we would do is, maybe, to compel the families to leave the steep slopes and find resettlement in safer areas in the mountain.”

A vice mayor from Lupon, Davao Oriental, has suggested to the HUDCC “to  complete your assistance, by buying the land itself for the project and to finance the construction”.

The agencies said the identification and acquisition of the land would be the least that the local governments could put up as counterpart.