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The name of the new secretary of the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) does not ring a bell among NGOs and people’s organizations long working toward decent and affordable housing.
Secretary Jose Ramon “Ping” Aliling is a civil engineer and turns out to be a former CEO of a big construction management corporation started by his father. Prior to his new appointment, he was an undersecretary at the DHSUD, spearheading the Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino Housing Program (4PH) championed by former Secretary Jose Rizalino “Jerry” Acuzar. Data on whether the ambitious target of building one million housing units per year has been achieved or not is hard to come by.
To perhaps forestall criticisms about the 4PH being obsessed with constructing high-rise residential buildings and with publicizing them as intended for income-poor informal settlers even as the price of the units is unaffordable to this target group, Secretary Aliling said in a press release that the “4PH will now include horizontal [housing] developments.”
He expects this “recalibration” to result in a significant increase in the number of housing units delivered by the 4PH. Organized urban poor communities will welcome this statement if it means upgrading existing informal settlements through horizontal housing plans, including low-rise residential buildings, bolstered by the participation of the families living there. With tenure security, closeness to their work, access to basic services, and local government support, these urban citizens can be counted on to build and sustain viable and productive communities.
As we await the guidelines for this new direction of the 4PH, Secretary Aliling may consider the proposals that NGOs and POs have proposed during meetings with the former housing czar but to no avail. It is hoped that horizonal developments are not limited to resettlement projects built by the National Housing Authority (NHA) in locations far from where families earn their living. Horizontal development can include site upgrading, that is, transforming slums and informal settlements into communities equipped with basic services.
In an April 2024 article for the Philippine Star, Teodoro Kalaw Katigbak, former chairperson of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), the predecessor of DHSUD, explained that “the removal of the elements that created the slums will automatically remove the slum areas.” He suggested: “Don’t build unaffordable houses, instead make inadequate houses livable. Don’t build new homes, upgrade existing ones.”
One house with improved sanitation, permanent supply of potable water, and legal and safe electricity can be counted as an achievement of the 4PH. Local governments can take care of building access roads and drainage systems. Security of land tenure — or freedom from threats of eviction and demolition — can come later.
This can be done in government properties declared as socialized housing sites through a presidential land proclamation. During the time of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, perhaps to gain the trust and confidence of the urban poor who sympathized with former president Joseph Estrada, proclaiming lands occupied by informal settlers was done left and right.
Up to this day, there is no systematic inventory of these sites, and improvements — if these can be called as such — are haphazardly made by residents themselves as their incomes allow. A super-typhoon or earthquake can topple these structures at once. Water-borne and vector-borne illnesses can easily spread. With narrow and dark alleys, children and women can fall victim to abuse and assault any time.
By allocating resources for the improvement of these communities, the 4PH can be a program that first recognizes the dignity of the urban poor and their right to an adequate standard of living.
Reviving the CMP
Another strategy that can contribute to the targets of the 4PH is the Community Mortgage Program or CMP.
Administered by the Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC), one of the attached shelter agencies of the DHSUD, the CMP has been proven to help informal settler families on privately owned lands have a place they can call their own. The government lends them, through their community association, money that they can use to pay the landowner, and they repay the loan for 30 years. This could have been explored in the Mayhaligue neighborhood in Tondo, which recently made headlines because of a violent demolition that 400 families resisted.
On several occasions, Acuzar admitted he was not keen on promoting the CMP. As a housing developer, his idea of a livable community is one that is not a densely populated area of substandard housing. Unfortunately, many CMP projects remain slum looking. But the program is designed to make development in these communities incremental — in recognition of the growth in the poor’s financial capacity over the years — by offering loans for home improvement and site development. Households, however, would rather focus on repaying their loan for land acquisition and spending on their other immediate needs.
Receiving negligible budget allocations since the start of this administration, the CMP has been practically dead. The 4PH can revive this clear example of horizontal development.
Meeting the poor where they are
Speaking of horizontal development, the government, through the NHA, continues to build resettlement sites for informal settlers occupying danger zones (such as river easements, coastal areas, and esteros) or areas earmarked for public infrastructure (such as access roads, railways, and flood control projects).
Much has been said about these housing projects with rows and rows of concrete (and allegedly substandard) houses, that they cause economic displacement resulting in further impoverishment of families, they lack basic services such as water and electricity, and they are not necessarily safe from climate-induced risks and hazards.
In a report by the Commission on Audit, the performance of the NHA over the years has been dismal. Despite this, its charter that is supposed to expire in July this year has been renewed for another 25 years. This means that the resettlement program will continue. The 4PH can introduce reforms by making sure that families in these housing projects receive what they are entitled to get. It can also improve the resettlement program by instituting mechanisms that hold the NHA and its contractors — including the company where the former DHSUD secretary came from — accountable whenever their shortcomings adversely affect relocatees.
The 4PH should likewise consider the number of families who manage to maintain their well-being and financial stability in these projects as success indicators rather than the number of units constructed when in reality these are not occupied by the intended beneficiaries or are abandoned.
With only three years left in the administration of President Marcos Jr, the DHSUD must admit that its target of six million housing units by 2028 is a “suntok sa buwan,” an impossible feat.
The “under-delivery” of the DHSUD under its former secretary was the main reason cited for the change in its leadership. The DHSUD, under Secretary Aliling, can still make a difference in the housing sector if it will indeed be open to other approaches.
The difference would also be meaningful if the department in charge of building human settlements meets the urban poor where they are. May DHSUD, under his watch, listen seriously at last to the voices of those most affected, to learn what really works for them. – Rappler.com
Gerald Nicolas is with the John J Carroll Institute on Church and Social Issues.
