THE House Committee on Housing and Urban Development has endorsed for plenary approval a measure establishing a local government resettlement program that will implement an on-site, in-city or near-city strategy for informal-settler families (ISFs).
In the proposed Local Government Unit-led On Site, In Site or Near City Resettlement Act, PDP-Laban Rep. Alfredo B. Benitez of Negros Occidental, the panel chairman and principal author of the measure, said the proposal seeks to help the 1.5 million ISFs in the country, of which almost 600,000 are found in Metro Manila. This measure is included in the package of bills aimed at addressing the country’s 5.5 million housing backlog. The package also includes a bill transferring government offices to the provinces and a resolution standardizing the definitions of housing terminologies.
“Government programs before were focused on the relocation of informal settlers to areas outside Metro Manila where they have no access to livelihood and other basic services. The scenario is that the ISFs are pushed to go back to informal settlements in the urban centers again because of their need to find a source of income for their family’s daily needs,” Benitez said.
Under the bill, to the extent feasible, socialized housing and resettlement projects should be located near areas where employment opportunities are accessible.
It also said the government agencies dealing with the provision of skills and livelihood training, development of livelihoods programs and grant of livelihood loads—the departments of Labor and Employment, Social Welfare and Development and Science and Technology, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and Philippine Trade and Training Center—shall give priority to the beneficiaries of the program.
It said the local government units (LGUs), in coordination with the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor and concerned government agencies, will afford program beneficiaries or their duly designated representatives an opportunity to participate in the decision-making process over matters “involving the protection and promotion of their legitimate collective interests”.
The bill said beneficiaries would also be encourage to organize themselves into an association for accreditation as beneficiaries or awardees of ownership rights under the resettlement program, community-mortgage program land-tenure assistance program and other similar programs in relation to a socialized-housing project actually being implemented by the national government or by the LGUs.
The association, in consultation with the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor, will formulate a “people’s plan”.
The people’s plan is a tool that recognizes the need for adequate consultation and participation of the beneficiaries themselves in planning their resettlement.
Benitez said the relocation action plan should ensure safe, affordable, decent and humane condition of relocation, incorporating therein appropriate disaster risk-reduction management and climate-change adaptation standards.