Monday, September 1, 2008 [ philstar.com ]
Mayor Florencio Bernabe Jr’s efforts to provide decent homes for its informal settlers and low-income families in partnership with Gawad Kalinga and the national government is making a lot of dreams come true in Parañaque City.
For the last three years, more than 2,000 houses have been built to shelter those who used to be called informal settlers who live difficult lives because they do not have roofs above their heads and homes they can call their own.
Bernabe, in an interview, proudly told The Star yesterday of how the city government’s zero slum dweller program is working wonders and changing lives.
At present, he said there are about 30 Gawad Kalinga housing projects in Parañaque for hundreds of families who will only be paying P600 to P700 in monthly amortization for the next 20 or 25 years. “What we do here is that we provide the land by giving beneficiaries loans from the city government or from the National Housing Authority,” Bernabe said.
“Once there is already a place to build, Gawad Kalinga, with their benefactors and sponsors, provide the means and materials to build. They have this bayanihan way of building the houses themselves,” he said.
After Gawad Kalinga villages are built, Bernabe said the city government gives residents more by providing site development projects for roads, drainage systems, basketball courts, pathwalks and the likes.
Parañaque has so far spent about P58 million for its housing programs which will, in time, be returned since beneficiaries do pay the land their homes were built.
Major Gawad Kalinga project areas in the locality include the Mangagayahn Kawayanan in Barangay Marcelo where some 800 units have been erected, Barangay Don Bosco where there are some 900 to 1,000 units, Malacanang Village dulo, and El Dorado Villa dulo.
Bernabe said the city government’s team up with Gawad Kalinga, a social ministry of Couples For Christ, is dramatically transforming the locality.
“Crime rates go down in areas where informal settlers used to be,” he said lauding Gawad Kalinga’s values formation programs for its beneficiaries.
He said he is also thanking subdivision dwellers like those living in Parañaque’s Marcelo Green Village for providing road rights of way for the little decent communities that they build. – Michael Punongbayan
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