[ manilastandardtoday.com ] June 21, 2008
By Romie A. Evangelista
The House of Representatives has approved a bill creating local housing boards in every town, city and province to speed up the provision for affordable housing nationwide.
Under the measure, the housing boards will be tasked to formulate and enforce policies on housing and to observe just and human procedure in cases when evictions or demolitions are unavoidable in their jurisdictions.
The proposed law transfers the function of clearing house for eviction and/or demolition from the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor to the housing boards, Speaker Prospero Nograles said in a statement.
Nograles said the House has endorsed the bill for Senate concurrence to give local governments the lead role in housing program in their areas.
The local governments are in the best position to decide on what programs are needed and where they are most beneficial, Nograles said. “I think the Arroyo government’s housing program will not fail despite the current global economic slowdown. It promotes social justice and catalyze more socio-economic activities and help create thousands of jobs for the masses in the countryside.”
Rep. Rodolfo Valencia of the committee on housing and urban development, together with Reps. Rozzano Rufino Biazon and Eduardo Zialcita, steered the measure through its final passage in plenary before Congress adjourned last June 11.
Zialcita said the creation of the local housing boards provides part of the solution to the problem of homelessness among many of Filipinos.
The measure also creates the position of Local Housing and Urban Development Office, headed by a city/municipal or Provincial Housing and Urban Development officer that will implement the policies, plans and programs formulated by the local housing boards.
Local government units are mandated to appropriate at least 1 percent of the Internal Revenue Allotment for the housing boards and are allowed to identify other sources of funds to support the operations of housing boards.
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