By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz & Catherine N. Pillas
Third of four parts
The right to adequate housing is one of the basic human rights, Demolition Watch stressed. “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food,
clothing, housing and medical care, and necessary social services; and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control,” the group said.
It is also recognized in the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1966. “The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right, recognizing to this effect the essential importance of international cooperation based on free consent.”
Also, the United Nations (UN) Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has underlined that the right to adequate housing should not be interpreted narrowly. Rather, it should be seen as the right to live somewhere in security, peace and dignity.
‘Adequate’ housing
The UN said the right to adequate housing contains freedoms, which include protection against forced evictions and the arbitrary destruction and demolition of one’s home; the right to be free from arbitrary interference with one’s home, privacy and family; and the right to choose one’s residence, to determine where to live and to freedom
of movement.
The UN also said the right to adequate housing contains entitlements which include: security of tenure; housing, land and property restitution; equal and nondiscriminatory access to adequate housing; and participation in housing-related decision-making at the national and community levels.
It clarified that adequate housing is more than just four walls and a roof. A number of conditions must be met before particular forms of shelter can be considered to constitute “adequate housing.”
It said housing is not adequate if its occupants do not have a degree of tenure security which guarantees legal protection against forced evictions, harassment and other threats. When it comes to the availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure, the UN said housing is not adequate if its occupants do not have safe drinking water, adequate sanitation, energy for cooking, heating, lighting, food storage or refuse disposal.
The UN added that housing is not adequate if its cost threatens or compromises the occupants’ enjoyment of other human rights, saying it is not also adequate if it does not guarantee physical safety or provide adequate space, as well as protection against the cold, damp, heat, rain, wind, other threats to health and structural hazards.
It is not adequate if the specific needs of disadvantaged and marginalized groups are not taken into account. It is not adequate if it is cut off from employment opportunities, health-care services, schools, childcare centers and other
social facilities.
Policy disagreement
Taking into account all these conditions, it appears that the only way the Philippines can provide adequate housing for its people is to build socialized housing units that are affordable, within urban areas where livelihood opportunities abound, and all the necessities identified by UN are present.
But achieving this is hard, particularly with the government and the private sector not agreeing on key areas so they join hands in addressing the estimated 5.5 million housing backlog today.
Noel “Toti” M. Cariño, vice president of the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders’ Association (Creba), said under the balanced-housing provision of the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992, known as Republic Act (RA) 7279, developers are obligated to develop an area for socialized housing equivalent to 20 percent of either their main project’s cost or the project’s area.
This provision is a thorn on developers’ side, as one of the compliance methods to the 20-percent rule entails a joint-venture partnership with either a housing agency or a local government unit—a situation that often leads to the private sector carrying the greater share of responsibility.
“While we have embraced the 20-percent socialized housing rule, it also behooves us that in that law, there are requirements for the partnership between national government and private sector to bring about the 20-percent requirement. This is a problem as the government should do their part in providing the road access, the water access, and basically the infrastructure that would make the socialized housing area livable,” Cariño lamented.
Oftentimes, housing units for the poor are situated far from their workplaces or are inaccessible, making them less appealing.
This is because there is a mandated price cap on socialized housing units that is difficult to meet, thus, forcing developers to look for cheaper land—away from the Metro.
Socialized housing has a price cap of P450,000 set by the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).
Adjusting the price ceiling, for developers, would mean more opportunities to serve the low-income market.
On top of the slow adjustment on price ceilings, a new proposal of Creba to fill the gap on socialized housing, in the form of vertical socialized housing projects, or what it calls the socialized medium-rise residential buildings (MRBs), has also been stalled.
The HUDCC and Neda did not recognize condominiums as an alternative means of compliance to the balanced-housing requirement, citing the limited wording of RA 7279.
The proposal for MRBs was put forward to address what Cariño said was the problem of informal settlers finding the current sites of socialized housing as too far from their workplace. Creba proposes that MRBs will only be located in urban areas to place the lower-income segment members closer to their work.
The proposed scheme, however, must be coupled with the relaxation of the 20-percent requirement for the socialized condominiums.
What Creba wants
According to a recent advocacy statement penned by Creba President Charlie Gorayeb, the proposed coverage of condominiums under the socialized housing quota will be workable, but only if compliance projects will be reduced to a more reasonable cap of 5 percent of the net saleable residential area instead of 20 percent of the total project area or cost.
For subdivisions, the group proposes a reduction of the quota from 20 percent to 15 percent.
Gorayeb proposed to change the existing alternative modes of compliance, from those in Section 18 of RA 7279 to: (a) Development of new settlements; (b) Joint-venture initiatives between a real-estate developer and either the local government units; any of the key shelter agencies; or with another developer; and (c) Development of socialized medium-rise condominium buildings.
Creba, with this proposal, is essentially making another housing package for socialized housing for MRBs.
While the organization of developers reasoned that this would respond to the huge lack of affordable housing for the poor, the government took a cautious stance, saying the price ceiling recommended by Creba—at P750,000 to P840,000—may not be affordable to the poorest of the poor.
On top of these challenges, the government agency steering and monitoring the development of socialized housing, the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB), has reportedly made requirements that developers find more stringent.
“They’re becoming more strict on license to sell; they’re monitoring developers as far as compliance is concerned and very strict because not everyone can develop socialized housing units, especially if they’re doing it for someone. There’s a deterrent actually in the rule, that if you haven’t built 500 units, you cannot build socialized housing unit as a developer,” Cariño said.
HLURB, in 2013, issued a memorandum circular detailing requirements for accreditation so socialized housing developers can enter into joint-venture projects with main subdivision project developers.
The memorandum circular mandates that only socialized housing developers that have built 500 units (both for vertical and horizontal) can apply for accreditation.
“Based on the stringent regulations of HLURB right now on accreditation of socialized housing, we are not optimistic about people delivering socialized housing. It’s our first year wherein HLURB is really clamping down as far as regulations are concerned. You cannot build socialized housing units as a developer for another entity without this requirement,” Cariño said. “There’s nothing in the law that says there is a basis for such a number,” he added.
In a previous statement, Creba contends that the requirement, even at the adjusted rate, will deny many small, medium and new developers the privilege of availing themselves of the mode of compliance to the balanced-housing provision, thereby preventing the production of more socialized housing units.
With the group envisioning a production of 500,000 units (encompassing all types of housing) for the next 20 years, the government should hold its end of the bargain, especially in the socialized housing development, Cariño said.
To be continued
Image credits: Nonie Reyes