Barely Surviving in Sitio Payong
Sandwiched between
exclusive subdivisions and enclosed by walls is Sitio Payong, an urban
poor community. Without electricity and water, health and education
services, the residents of Sitio Payong try to survive. But with the
impending relocation and the unaffordable terms being imposed on them,
they might end up homeless as well.
BY AUBREY SC MAKILAN
Bulatlat
|
Peter Mateo’s father,
Santiago, was searching for a place for his family in the 1940s and ended
up in Sitio Payong, Old Balara, Quezon City. Seeing that only a few houses
occupy the 100-hectare hilly area, Santiago decided to settle there. He
grew vegetables and palay on the vacant portion.
THE
OLD WAY: Sitio Payong’s
children do their homework
the old way – by candlelight –
because there is no electricity
PHOTO BY AUBREY SC MAKILAN |
On sloping land,
folks grew bananas, gabi (taro), kamoteng kahoy (cassava),
and malunggay (moringa or horseradish). On flat land, they planted
eggplant, squash, raddish, and okra. They also planted rice during the
rainy season.
Today, residents sell
a buwig (bunch) of bananas for only P30-50 ($0.57-0.96 at
$1:P51.91). Some sell these as banana cue (fried bananas coated
with sugar in sticks). Some trade it for products they need. To augment
their income, men look for jobs as construction workers.
But in the 1970s, a
portion of Sitio Payong was bulldozed allegedly on orders by Loyola Grand
Villas (LGV) developer VV Soliven to build a subdivision. Sitio Payong
residents filed a case of land grabbing against VV Soliven before the Land
Registration Authority (LRA) and the Department of Agrarian Reform
Adjudication Board (DARAB) and won.
Although some of them
received compensation, the residents were saddened that their crops were
destroyed and part of the land they cultivated could not be restored. The
originally hilly area, which they described as shaped like a payong
(umbrella), hence the name, was flattened.
In 1985, the Armed
Forces of the Philippines-Mutual Benefit Association, Inc. (AFP-MBAI)
filed a claim on a 60-hectare portion of the sitio. But they were able to
present a title only in 1996. The Philippine Heart Center (PHC) and the
Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) also presented land titles
claiming about eight and twelve hectares, respectively.
The land where Peter
built his house was being claimed by the PHC. Peter told Bulatlat
in an interview that the claimants have deployed security guards in Sitio
Payong to prevent newcomers from entering. This has been confirmed by Engr.
Lim Tin of the Housing Committee of the PHC.
Last year, residents
went to the Registry of Deeds of Marikina and Quezon City to verify the
titles presented by the PHC and GSIS . Peter told Bulatlat that
lands covered by the titles of PHC and GSIS were located in Zambales and
Pampanga.
Tin denied this.
To resolve the issue,
the residents filed a petition before the Ombudsman last year. Peter said
that the case has not yet been raffled and no one wants to handle the case
because it involves government agencies.
Peter said the
residents already spent P13,000 ($250.40) for research and filing of the
petition alone.
Prisoners
Sitio Payong is
surrounded by private subdivisions namely, LGV, Ayala Heights, Capitol Park Homes, and La
Vista, where President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo built one of her houses.
A wall was built by
LGV to cover the sitio. Residents then had to climb an improvised ladder
to reach the main street. Peter said, “We were prisoners behind the wall.”
Residents of Sitio
Payong fought back by destroying a portion of the wall. Officials of the
subdivisions surrounding the sitio sought the assistance of a special unit
of the police, the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) to watch over the
wall. But Sitio Payong residents would always find a chance to destroy
part of the wall.
|
NOT A FAR-FLUNG
VILLAGE: Residents of Sitio Payong in Quezon City endure the burden of
fetching water from a well and carrying it across
a sloped path because there is no water system
PHOTO BY AUBREY SC MAKILAN |
After a dialogue with
the officers of the LGV homeowners association, the residents were finally
given right of way. An 80-cm opening in the wall was made and a gate
installed. The opening was widened to allow tricycles ferrying residents
to pass through. But, Peter said, a curfew was imposed. The gate is
padlocked at 9:30 pm. They are allowed to go out in case of emergency but
will be allowed to come back only the next morning.
No social services
Around 500 families
are presently living in Sitio Payong, enduring a life without electricity
and water.
They still use
firewood for cooking. They use an iron heated by coal for ironing their
children’s school uniform. At night, they use the butotoy, an
improvised lamp made of a soft drink or liquor bottle half-filled with
kerosene and with a piece of cloth as wick.
Peter admitted that,
at first, they resorted to tapping power lines from electric posts. But
when he became a community leader and a barangay tanod (village
security), in the late ‘90s, he immediately gathered his co-residents to
convince them to cut their illegal electrical connections.
As a result, some
contributed to buy second hand generators that amounted to around P4,000
each ($78.27). A gasoline-powered generator could supply electricity for
lighting four to five houses. A liter of gasoline is consumed for one and
a half hours. Since the prices of petroleum products continue to increase,
the use of generators are becoming unaffordable. At present, there are
only about five generators in the whole community.
“Most of the time, we
only use the generator during Saturdays (after pay day) and if we have
spare money to buy gasoline,” said Peter. “Of course, our priority is our
food and our children’s baon (packed meal).”
Peter recalled that
when they were kids, they used to walk a kilometer to reach their neighbor
who then had a television powered by a 12-volt battery.
Last Jan. 22 Peter
and his neighbors contributed five pesos ($0.09) each to buy gasoline for
the generator so that they will be able to watch the boxing rematch of
Erik Morales and Manny Pacquiao.
They could not afford
to buy radios that require at least four batteries costing around P100
($1.92).
The sitio, a mere
hundreds of meters away from the Balara Filtration Plant and the offices
of water companies servicing Metro Manila, do not have water connections.
In the ‘90s, local
politicians funded the construction of artesian wells. But residents
cannot use them anymore as the water they get from it is dirty. In 2002,
Bayan Muna Party-list sponsored the construction of two deep wells with
water pumps. But they cannot afford the gasoline for the pumps.
For cooking,
residents hire someone to fetch water from the next community, four hills
away. They pay P40 ($0.77) for fetching the water. But it is more
expensive during rainy days when the road is slippery.
Peter said water
tankers with the SB (acronym for Mayor Sony Belmonte’s projects in Quezon
City) logo used to supply potable water to them. But the water tankers
stopped coming after the 2004 elections.
Peter said they have
applied several times for power and water lines but these are allegedly
being blocked by PHC and GSIS. He said the PHC and GSIS think the
residents will refuse to leave the place if they are provided with
electricity and water.
But Peter belied it
saying, “Dahil kapag ginusto po nilang paalisin ang mga tao sa isang
komunidad ay nagagawa nila at nagiging legal pa ang basehan kung bibigyan
ng relokasyon.” (If they want to eject us, they can do it legally by
just providing a relocation site.)
Tin denied that PHC
is blocking the residents’ applications. Tin suggested that probably the
homeowners of the private subdivisions are the ones blocking their
application.
Meanwhile, Anchie
Alvarado of the Basic Utility Service Section of the Quezon City’s Urban
Poor Affairs Office, told Bulatlat that they have already
coordinated with the electric company, Meralco, and even shouldered some
of the costs of the application.
Alvarado said that
they are just waiting for the residents to pursue their application and
will process it again as part of the city’s Depressed Area Electrification
Program (DAEP).
Aside from that, Sitio Payong does not have a day care center, a health
center, or a chapel of their own.
Because they could
not send their children to health centers or hospitals for check ups, they
only depend on medical missions for vaccinations and detection or
treatment of illnesses.
Even the education of
their children is a problem. A part of Sitio Payong is near Marikina City
but the latter prioritizes its constituents over those from other places
like Quezon City where Sitio Payong belongs. They had to enroll their
children at the Old Balara Elementary School. But they can hardly afford
the fare going to school. Students try to hitch a ride from private
vehicles and trucks passing the area.
Unaffordable
relocation
The residents of
Sitio Payong endure their hardships because they have nowhere to go.
Last February 2005,
the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) organized a meeting
between government agencies, to include the Department of Environment and
Natural Resources (DENR), LRA, Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), PHC,
GSIS, and the local governments of Quezon City and Marikina, and the
residents of Sitio Payong to discuss their relocation. The residents
almost accepted a hilly relocation site in San Mateo, Rizal. Government
agencies also promised to provide basic services.
But, Peter told
Bulatlat, they were being asked to shell out P20,000 as “equity or
entrance fee.” Tin however denied this. He said they have not yet
finalized the terms for the relocation site.
Peter added that they
were also told that they cannot dismantle and reuse the lumber from their
current houses in building their new houses in Rizal. He said they will be
shown a model house that they have to replicate.
“Wala nga kaming
pera kaya ganyan lang ang bahay namin at wala kaming sariling lupa tapos
may susundin pa kaming model sa ipapagawang bahay,”
(We do not have money that is why our houses are like this and we have no
land of our own. And now they are asking us to pattern our houses after a
model) he said.
Without electricity
and water, health and education services, the residents of Sitio Payong
try to survive. But with the impending relocation and the unaffordable
terms being imposed on them, they might end up homeless as well.
Bulatlat
BACK TO
TOP ■
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION ■
COMMENT
© 2006 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications
Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided
its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.