[ journal.com.ph ] June 5, 2008
HOUSE Speaker Prospero Nograles appealed to the government to give delinquent home owners more time to settle their mortgage obligations.
Nograles urged the National Home Mortgage Finance Corp to implement another scheme to help home owners re-finance their loans through flexible payment arrangements. He said foreclosing properties is anti-poor because this may push thousands of Filipino families to go back to slum areas.
“If we foreclose their homes, where will they go? These foreclosures only defeat the purpose of why we offer low cost and socialized housing for the poor if in the end we also take it away from them. We should extend them more compassion especially now that we are in the middle of a global economic firestorm,” Nograles said.
He sought a legislative inquiry into the alleged foreclosure of some 53,000 low-cost housing units purchased by the Balikatan Housing Finance, Inc. from the NHMFC.
The House Committee on Housing and Urban Development chaired by Rep. Rodolfo Valencia set the hearing on June 10.
The Asian Development Bank, which lent P1.6-billion in 2005 to be used for Balikatan, said the NHMFC sold its non-performing loans comprising 52,289 individual accounts for low-and middle income housing units valued at P13.45 billion.
These housing units are located in some 500 housing projects or subdivisions in 57 provinces and in the National Capital Region.
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