By JUSTIN UMALI and SHAN KENSHIN ECALDRE
Bulatlat.com
CABUYAO CITY, Laguna – In a small community in Calamba City, Laguna, the situation remains uncertain for 40 displaced families following a sudden and violent demolition.
On December 12, residents of Purok 2 in barangay Makiling were startled by the presence of demolition teams flanked by “40 to 50” armed guards who were barking orders at them and forcing them to evacuate the area.
“They pushed me out of [the community],” one resident who asked for anonymity related to Bulatlat. “Then they closed the gate on me to prevent me from going back. The others had it worse; they couldn’t come out of their houses.”
Another resident said that she and her children only barely managed to leave the community with some of their belongings. “My children kept asking me, ‘Why do we have to leave?’,” she said.
“Last New Year’s, they said that they couldn’t be happy because they hadn’t moved on. They kept asking me, ‘Why don’t we have a house anymore?’”
In the early hours of December 12, chaos erupted in Purok 2 as armed, masked individuals appeared outside homes, carrying 9mm pistols and .45 caliber firearms. Residents awoke to the sound of commotion and discovered their properties being fenced off. A certain James Tan Li is claiming ownership of the lot. When some locals demanded a court order, none was provided.
Some settlers in the compound began recording videos to document the incident. “I was the first to wake up. I woke him up [husband of a resident], and after that, I went outside to check what was going on. I started recording a video, and immediately they asked me, ‘Why are you filming?,” shared another community member.
As the demolition continued, tensions escalated, and a scuffle broke out between the demolition team and the residents. A resident was hit near the eye and temporarily lost vision.
The injured person’s family sought medical assistance, but despite promises, only the victim’s spouse provided first aid.
“They said they would provide medical help, but the whole day passed, and nothing happened. I had no choice but to rely on Betadine and self-medication,” the spouse said.
The names of the residents are withheld upon request.
The demolition team also barred the residents from retrieving their personal belongings. They were only able to salvage some documents and a few clothes.
For now, the affected residents are staying with their relatives. Their former compound is unrecognizable, completely demolished, and surrounded by corrugated metal fencing.
Republic Act 7279, or the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992 officially discourages eviction and demolition as a practice. However, critics like urban poor rights group Kadamay have pointed out that the government “allows itself to be used by people claiming to be land owners” through the law, or through corruption.
“There are cases where the urban poor lose out because somebody suddenly introduces themselves as the owner,” said Kadamay Secretary General Mimi Doringo. “In cases like these, even if the residents have lived [in the area] for more than 10 years, the government usually favors the person with the title.”
According to the law, demolitions are the last resort, authorized only via a court order. The process to obtain a court order requires proponents to conduct a series of consultations, tagging, and relocation procedures before the actual issuance of a court order and final demolition. In every step, the local government must be involved and the community informed of the steps, and the local government is required to provide adequate housing to relocate the residents.
In practice, however, this process is rarely followed. As in the case of Purok 2, urban poor residents are usually victimized by forcible eviction while local governments claim that nothing can be done in private property disputes.
According to the residents, they first tried talking to local barangay officials in Makiling but were met with no response. Similarly, Calamba City Mayor Ross Rizal has yet to sit with them for a dialogue. Calamba police, meanwhile, claimed that they can do nothing in private disputes and the matter was up to the courts.
This, however, is an incorrect interpretation of law, says Doringo. “The local government should mediate to meet the demands of both the landowner and the urban poor [in the community], especially since they are the local government in that area.”
She pointed out that local governments have the responsibility to “ensure the safe condition of their constituents,” stressing that it should intervene to ensure that evictions don’t become violent. Doringo also stated that the LGU can “buy the land and create a plan for affordable housing.”
“The key here is that the LGU should be humane with its constituents,” said Doringo.
The community around Purok 2 began forming 37 years ago when some residents set up a vulcanizing shop. According to older residents, the area was initially a flat, vacant lot, and the vulcanizing shop was a way to earn a living.
Residents said Tan Li initially demanded the residents to leave before verbally entrusting the land to the same residents as caretakers.
“He told us we could stay and watch over the property, but if the owner decided to reclaim it, we would have to leave immediately,” she added.
Over the years, several individuals would claim the lot in Purok 2, but none could produce substantive proof of their ownership. Tan Li’s proof was a Transfer Certificate of Title supposedly granting him and his spouse ownership of land, dated August 1913.
In 2018, the residents of Purok 2 decided to form an organization, Laban para sa Lupa, to organize their efforts in disputes against alleged landowners. However, according to the organization, their legal cases fell through when their lawyer “disappeared from the case.” The group picked up the legal battle again in 2024, hiring the services of a new lawyer, after people began surveying the size of the lot last June, apparently at Tan Li’s behest.
“I saw that people needed help, so I led the effort to file a new case. We pooled our resources, hired a private lawyer, and discovered that the claimants lacked sufficient documents,” an officer of Laban para sa Lupa explained.
According to him, they found out that the lot numbers presented to them by Tan Li and other individuals did not correspond to the actual lot number in Purok 2. Tracing the lot numbers, they found out that they referred to plots of land in Quezon City. They also checked with the Land Registration Authority, who said that the land titles for Purok 2 were “missing.”
Doringo emphasized that the Philippine government should “focus on providing adequate, affordable, and public housing.”
“It’s a shame that the 2025 National Budget allotted too little to national housing,” said Doringo, “giving it instead to road widening projects which we know usually affects communities and leads to demolition.”
Under the 2025 National Expenditure Program, the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development’s budget was cut down from a proposed P4.22 million to P3.55 million. The DHSUD, accordingly, announced that it was lowering its target of building low-cost housing units from 4 million by 2028 to 3.2 million. Kadamay, however, asserts that this target is too low to accommodate the current housing backlog, which the group estimates to reach “as high as 12 million” by 2028.
“We stand with the urban poor in asserting that the national budget should focus on social services, especially housing and housing security,” said Doringo. Doringo is one of the eleven senatorial candidates running in the 2025 midterm elections under the Makabayan slate.
For the residents of Purok 2, they emphasized their willingness to return the land if proven to belong to the rightful owner. However, they refused offers to sell the land as no claimant provided valid proof of ownership.
To this day, the residents call for justice after the demolition of their homes. They remain haunted by the incident and appeal for help from local authorities.
“All I ask is for [Calamba mayor Ross Rizal] to help us secure relocation. We’ve lost our jobs and our livelihood. We have nothing to eat,” a resident pleaded. (RVO)
