by Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz & Catherine N. Pillas
Conclusion
To address the country’s housing problem—with the backlog estimated at 5.5 million
units, and is seen to swell to 12.5 million units by 2030—the Senate, the House of Representatives and private-sector stakeholders recently launched a national housing summit.
The chairman of the House Committee on Housing and Urban Development, Rep. Alfredo B. Benitez of the Third District of Negros Occidental, said the summit aims to tackle different housing issues, such as affordable rental, the housing backlog and
informal settlers.
“It would be six to eight months of continuous deliberations and discussions, with each meeting to be conducted by the joint congressional committee of the Senate and the House. We will discuss possible solutions for No. 1, addressing the issue of backlog; and, No. 2, addressing the issue of affordable and decent housing,” the lawmaker said.
“The summit will work on real-life cases or prototypes within the National Capital Region to ensure that the proposed measures and programs are viable enough to be applied on a national scale,” he said.
He added that collaboration between the public and private sectors in addressing the issues of housing is a big help to solve the shelter problem. This, he said, is because the backlog can also be remedied by targeting how many houses can be built in a year, which should be considered the minimum goal.
“Our challenges to solve backlogs are that, first, to have a national planning program that would be for a long-term basis; and, second, once and for all, solve the problem or arrest the increasing figure of housing problems,” Benitez said.
He also urged the government to create a program that seeks to implement a long-term housing-rental scheme for homeless Filipinos, another necessary ingredient of the efforts to address the country’s housing backlog.
“We in the House Committee on Housing and our counterpart in the Senate are pushing for a solution to address the perennial problem in the housing industry, which is the backlog, because of the lack of affordable housing. A Filipino cannot afford a housing unit because it’s too prohibitive,” he said.
The legislator added that affordable housing provides a more cost-effective solution to address homelessness in the Philippines.
“We should find a way to make the industry move forward. The only way to make it is through government intervention or, on a massive scale, that creates a public rental scheme,” Benitez said.
According to Benitez, there are many available government lots that can be used for affordable-housing projects for every homeless Filipino.
“The concept of this long-term public rental is after 30 years of renting [at only P200 to P500 a month in a government land and facility], a homeless Filipino, who at the given time already has better job and financially stable, can now afford to buy his own house,” he said.
“Affordable housing is the most important part of a country’s housing system. Lack of affordable housing can make it hard to achieve other household needs, such as health, education and employment.”
The summit will also give focus to programs that will address the plight of the informal settlers in urban centers.
Sen. Joseph Victor G. Ejercito, chairman of the Senate Committee on Urban Planning, Housing and Resettlement, said the summit also seeks to produce a national housing plan that will respond to the country’s housing backlog.
To accomplish this plan, Ejercito urged the delegates from academe, civic organizations, private stakeholders and financial institutions to unite with the government and lend their technical expertise to also tackle the issue of growing informal-settler communities and to strengthen the government’s existing housing programs.
Ejercito also cited the participation of the World Bank, which lends technical guidance in coming up with a holistic National Housing Strategy and Policy Paper, which is the aimed output of the summit.
“Policy reforms to be discussed in the summit shall cover land conversion, financing schemes, particularly for in-city housing projects, government involvement in socialized housing, disaster mitigation and urban development,” he said.
The National Housing Summit, to be held in several cities throughout the year, shall be led and partnered by the Joint Committees on Housing and Urban Development of the Philippine Congress, the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, the National Economic and Development Authority and the World Bank.
Benitez and Ejercito also share the view that the creation of the Department of Housing, Planning and Urban Development should be made as one of the key topics in the summit.
Currently, there are three pending bills in the lower chamber that seek to create the Department of Housing, Planning and Urban Development.
Recently, the House Committee on Appropriations has approved the funding provision of a substitute measure creating the Department of Housing, Planning and Urban Development. The bill seeks to ensure affordable and decent housing for underprivileged and homeless Filipinos.
The measure tasks the new department to be the sole and main planning and policy-making, regulatory, program-coordination and performance-monitoring entity for all housing and urban-development concerns, primarily focusing on the access to and affordability of the basic human needs.
Camarines Sur Rep. Felix William
B. Fuentebella, one of the authors of the bill, said the government should establish a primary national government entity responsible for the management of housing and urban development.
“The creation of such department will strongly support and move forward our goal of strengthening the core capacity required to improve sector governance and address sector issues and challenges stemming from rapid urbanization, uncontrolled urban growth, increasing urban poverty and deteriorating urban environment,” he said.
The Philippine Development Plan said several legislative measures will help the government in addressing several problems besetting the country’s housing system.
The bill creating the Department of Housing, Planning and Urban Development is listed in the Philippine Development Plan, along with the Balanced Housing Requirement for Condominium Projects bill, a measure establishing Local Housing Boards, the proposed National Land Use Act (Nalua) and the Comprehensive and Integrated Shelter Finance Act (Cisfa) II.
The Balanced Housing Requirement for Condominium Projects, which already passed the lower chamber and is pending in the Senate, seeks to require developers of proposed condominium projects to develop socialized- housing projects (costing at least 20 percent of the projects) as compliance to the 20-percent balanced housing requirement for subdivisions, per Section 18 of the Urban Development and Housing Act, or Republic Act (RA) 7279.
The proposed local housing boards in every city and municipality, meanwhile, will serve as the focal unit in the delivery of housing services, local shelter planning and disposition of underutilized assets of shelter agencies and the national government.
The proposal was approved on final reading at the lower house, but is still pending in the Senate.
Both chambers, meanwhile, are still studying the proposed Nalua and Cisfa II.
The Nalua seeks to establish a national land-use framework that will define the indicative priorities for land utilization and allocation. The Nalua shall integrate efforts, monitor developments related to land-use, and evolve policies, regulations and directions of land use planning processes.
It also mandates the formulation of national planning and zoning guidelines and standards to guide local government units in the formulation and enactment of their zoning ordinances.
The Cisfa II seeks to enact the continuation of the first Cisfa, or RA 7835, to increase budget appropriation for the socialized housing program of the government and significantly increase the provision of housing and tenure security to poor informal settlers and help the country in attaining the Millennium
Development Goals.
Noel M. Cariño, vice president of the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders’ Association, said they will push another proposal that seek to streamline all the funds for home financing offered by the government in one fund, to be called the Centralized Homebuyer Financing Program (CHFP), during the summit.
The CHFP will amount to P220 billion, consisting of housing-related funds allocated to different government agencies through various laws.
Image credits: Ed Davad