On this Site will Rise

P32B needed to house 500,000 squatter-families

MANILA, Philippines -- The government needs more than P32 billion in the next 10 years to provide decent relocation and housing for more than 500,000 families in Metro Manila’s squatter colonies, according to an interagency committee.

The number of squatter families represents 21 percent of the estimated 2.6 million households in Metro Manila.

One in every five squatting families lives in danger areas such as riverbanks, floodways, roads, aqueducts and under bridges, according to the Metro Manila Inter-Agency Committee on Informal Settlers (MMIAC).

In a report, the MMIAC said the government would need P3.225 billion yearly to come up with the 22,689 socialized housing units needed every year over a 10-year period.

The MMIAC’s report was one of the documents the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) submitted to the Supreme Court on Oct. 13 in compliance with the tribunal’s December 2008 decision ordering government agencies to clean up Manila Bay.

The Supreme Court in its landmark decision specifically ordered the MMDA and the Department of Public Works and Highways to dismantle structures and other encroachments on all waterways leading to the bay and to report to the tribunal the progress of their compliance.

“Specifically, the government needs to produce approximately 14,922 (housing units) per year over the current production of 7,767 units,” the MMIAC.

It said this socialized housing backlog of almost 15,000 units was earlier projected and submitted to the National Housing Authority for action starting in 2007.

Based on the survey of Metro Manila’s local government units and the NHA in September 2007, there have been an estimated 544,609 total households living in different illegal settlements, the interagency committee said.

President Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered the immediate relocation of families near waterways following the massive flooding caused by tropical storm ``Ondoy’’ on Sept. 26.

The MMIAC said half of the informal settlers, or more than 270,000 families, would be qualified for the government’s 10-year socialized housing program worth more than P32 billion.

“(The) first available housing option is the development of off-site/off-city resettlement areas…. An example of this would be the house-and lot-provision of the NHA costing P200,000 per family in resettlement sites like Calauan, Laguna,” the committee said.

“In this case, the government shoulders the initial costs and recovers these through affordable monthly amortization of P300 to P500,” it said.

A census and pre-qualification survey estimate that 40 percent of the squatter families in Metro Manila are financially capable to avail themselves of commercial housing through government loan facilities such as the Pag-Ibig fund.

Ten percent of the informal-settler households were deemed disqualified from receiving any housing assistance from the government.

Formed in July 2007 by Ms Arroyo, the MMIAC is composed of the MMDA, NHA, local government units, the Urban Poor Affairs Office, Housing and Urban Development and Coordinating Council, Presidential Commission on Urban Poor, Office of the Undersecretary for Religious Affairs, Commission on Human rights, Caritas Manila representing the Catholic hierarchy, and other government agencies.

The MMDA head and the NHA general manager were designated as the chair and vice chair, respectively, of the MMIAC.

Copyright INQUIRER.net and content partners. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.