By Ma. Jerrylyn Barcelo
[ tribune.net.ph ]
10/07/2010
Vice President and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) Chairman Jejomar Binay admitted facing a daunting task of providing decent homes to more than 3 million Filipino families because of lack funds to support housing projects.
The government needs P252 billion in order to build houses which will provide decent shelter to millions of families around the country who are either informal settlers, homeless or just renting homes, Binay said.
According to the Philippine Human Rights reporting project, there are still around 4.5 million Filipinos who are homeless.
“One-third of the Filipino populace could not afford to own a house. In Metro Manila alone, there are about 3.1 million informal settlers or commonly known as squatters. About 23 percent of them stay in government-owned land; some 22 percent are living in private lands; 15 percent are in danger zones like in esteros (big canals), beside the railroad tracks, under the bridges, and similar areas; and the 40 percent are living in infrastructure sites,” a report from the HUDCC said.
In Quezon City, considered as one of the largest urban cities in Metro Manila (National Capital Region), there are about 200,000 (an estimated one million or less peoples) are considered informal settlers.
The government always blamed poverty as the number one reason why Filipinos cannot afford to buy a house.
To address the problem, the Vice President bared an eight-point action plan aim to provide quality housing to poor Filipinos.
Binay said the cheapest house that government can build based on record will cost a Filipino family around P70,000, the price of the land not yet included.
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