ON March 8 members of the urban-poor group Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) illegally occupied idle government housing projects in Bulacan. These housing units were intended for low-salaried uniformed personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police, Bureau of Fire Protection and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology. Some of the units they seized were built by the National Housing Authority (NHA) for informal-settler families living along waterways and danger zones in the metropolis.
Kadamay leaders said they decided to occupy the idle houses because the government’s housing agencies have been ignoring their applications for free housing for the longest time. But their illegal occupation deprives the intended awardees of their right to government housing assistance. And the NHA said it will never allow any mob rule in its housing projects.
Kadamay’s occupation of government housing units reminds us of a statement made by former Hawaii governor and housing advocate Linda Lingle: “We have come dangerously close to accepting the homeless situation as a problem that we just can’t solve.” Although this statement was made about the American housing crisis in the 20th century, it painfully hits close to home, given our current housing problem. The National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC), an agency under the Office of the President, said the country’s housing backlog, caused by the failure of the housing programs of past administrations, has already escalated into a humanitarian crisis. “There is an urgent need for a comprehensive mass-housing program to guarantee the right to decent shelter for the poor,” NAPC Secretary Liza L. Maza said.
President Duterte labeled Kadamay’s action to occupy idle government housing units in Bulacan as a form of anarchy. He has issued a strong warning for them to leave the premises or face the full force of the law: “If you want to ignore the law, you cannot do that. I will force the issue with eviction. I will do what I have to do.”
Following the President’s warning, the NHA started issuing eviction notices to Kadamay members occupying 5,262 housing units in seven NHA project sites in Bulacan. The NHA said Kadamay members have seven days upon receipt of the eviction notice to leave the housing units they occupied. The agency said Kadamay members who want to have their own housing units must follow the NHA procedures, like answering the housing information form, screening process and beneficiary selection.
The NHA assured Kadamay members that it will come up with housing programs and projects appropriate to their needs, with necessary budget from the national government. Unfortunately, the NHA’s assurances apparently fell on deaf ears, as the barricades put up by the illegal occupants around the resettlement areas were still standing as of this writing, with placards saying the housing project is free and for the masses.
Most everyone agree there’s an urgent need to find lasting solutions that are truly responsive to the needs of the poor. As one public official quipped, “We are sad it happened this way, yet, let this be a reminder to the government to act now and provide housing to those who need it the most.”
To solve homelessness, we need to build lots of affordable housing. But the government has failed to do that. The Duterte administration, however, has five more years to solve the country’s housing backlog of around 6 million units.
1 comment
Let us stop wasting tax payer money encouraging the poor to think that free housing is a right, it is not written into the constitution (which says affordable). Gov’t must immediately build instead a giant hollow block factory in lahar land to give employment to relocated squatters. Give the poor pride in ownership, by restoring their self respect, they can be partially paid in building materials to build there own, instead of by gov’t doles that promote the mendicancy mentality.
The resettled can be used as work crews to construct entire communities
built to code if supervised well by competent engineers. I bet they would even
do a better job than the usual gov’t sub-contractors.
Another option is to relocate these squatters to gov’t allocated farm communes
modeled on the Israeli Kibbutz. Did you know that we have a shortage of
farmers, the average age is 50, who will feed the nation in the future if this
continues. This manpower exodus from rural to the urban must be reversed.
Lastly, if the previous PNoy administration can waste P4+ Billion of
taxpayer money on a defective MRT, it’s not surprising another P4+ Billion was
wasted on defective housing.