Written
by Charlie V. Manalo
Wednesday, 26
June 2013 08:00 [ tribune.net.ph ]
A newly
elected lawmaker yesterday expressed support to the call of the influential Catholic
Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) for the government to open up
government lands for mass housing of informal settlers living along esteros and
other danger zone areas in Metro Manila.
Incoming
Anakpawis Rep. Fernando Hicap said he agreed with the proposal of Manila
Auxillary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, chairman of the CBCP National Secretariat
for Social Action, saying the national government should stop selling public
lands to foreign corporations and instead mobilize resources for mass housing
projects built on government lands to accommodate not fewer than 500,000
informal settlers all over Metro Manila.
Hicap said
the same can be applied to other cities facing the same problem in different
parts of the country.
“Of course
the long-term solution would be the implementation of genuine land reform and
national industrialization which need an overhaul of the system and power
relations in the country,” Hicap said.
The Anakpawis
partylist representative said President Aquino should immediately rescind the
policy of selling public lands to foreign investors and other real estate
monopolies and instruct concerned government agencies to immediately conduct a
national inventory of all government lands which can be used for mass housing
projects which are decent, cheap and truly affordable to urban poor and
homeless Filipinos.
On top of the
mass housing projects, Hicap suggested that the Aquino government invest
government funds in productive campaigns such as job creation based on
production of goods and services that would employ millions of jobless urban
poor and, in return, would enable them to pay low- cost housing with the
support from the state in the form of institutional subsidies and support
services.
Hicap said
the Aquino government can re-channel the P44 billion it set aside for the
budget of the controversial conditional- cash transfer to mass housing projects
and sustainable job creation program anchored on the promotion of light and
heavy industries which are essentially public owned or public controlled.
Hicap cited
the potential of the government-owned Food Terminal Inc. (FTI) in Taguig City,
one of the largest industrial complexes in the country.
He said the
Aquino government can build mass housing project on the unused government land inside
FTI compound for the relocation of informal settlers and design a job
employment program that would enable urban poor families to land jobs in the
300 firms currently hosted in FTI.
“Why
complicate the problem? The equation in addressing this mass housing problem is
as simple as solving the equation 1 + 2 = 3. The problem with Aquino
administration is that it is super obsessed with selling the people’s resources
to the highest bidder in exchange for juicy commissions and political backing
of the rich and powerful,” Hicap said.
The solon
agreed with observations raised by urban poor organizations that the proposed
P18,000 assistance to estero-dwelling families for renting space somewhere else
for 12 months will not solve the problem.
“The P18,000
subsidy would lead these tens of thousands of estero-dwelling families to the
same area where they used to occupy because only in these urban poor and danger
prone areas where they they can find space for rent that would cost each of
them P1,500 per month. The offer is not part of the solution even in tactical
sense, it is part of and would further exacerbate the problem of homelessness
and landlessness among the poor in Metro Manila,” Hicap said.
Earlier,
Palace spokesman Edwin Lacierda had denied the P18,000 offer was a band-aid
solution, asserting that what the government will provide is assistance and
that structures are being built to accommodate informal settlers who would be
displaced once the government goes full blast in clearing eight major waterways
that would call for the eviction of not fewer than 20,000 families in the
National Capital Region.
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