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Proposed `Department of Housing' a Bane to the Poor

This is an abridged version of Bayan Muna Rep. Crispin Beltran’s 13-page position paper on the proposed Department of Housing (DOHUD).

BY REP. CRISPIN BELTRAN, Bayan Muna
Bulatlat.com

In 1990, the Presidential Commission on the Urban Poor (PCUP) reported that in the 123 major urban centers throughout the country, there were 618 slums and squatter areas with population accounting for 36% of the urban poor. More than 60% of these slums are found in Metro Manila.

According to the PCUP, the number of urban poor grew to 15 million by 1992, 65% or 9.75 million of whom are living in slums and squatter areas. In Metro Manila alone, 3.5 million people or approximately 700,000 families are informal settlers.

Obviously, these figures are comparatively larger than in 1992. With the magnitude of rural to urban migration in recent years, PCUP reveals that the population in regional urban growth centers has grown 15 times more than the national average.

This rapid urban migration unfortunately is not a product of development or more precisely, industrial development occurring in the towns and cities. The exodus of people towards urban growth centers is a product of extreme rural poverty due to centuries-old landlessness, land conversions, and militarization of the countryside. In the cities, these settlers end up jobless, and as a result, also end up homeless.

The worsening housing crisis

Over the next four years, the country’s housing need is projected to reach 3.36 million units, assuming that there will be a 100% growth in the number of households. Of the total housing need, more than 1.12 million units comprise what is called the housing backlog.

In the latest estimates released during the recent anniversary of the National Housing Authority (NHA), government’s lead agency and corporation engaged in direct shelter production, the housing need now stands at 4.2 million units.

This figure is even conservative compared to Rep. Eduardo Zialcita’s projection of a housing backlog of 4.5 million homeless families, of which 75% are informal settlers.

Symptomatic of the intensity of the housing crisis is the emergence and growth in the number of so-called “visible homeless” who are forced to live in pushcarts, along seawalls, on sidewalks and empty streets, on the lawn of churches and parks, beside the railways and esteros, cemeteries, dumpsites and under the bridge. They work during the day and stay on these areas at night.

During his term, former President Joseph Estrada engaged in an ambitious plan to build 350,000 housing units annually or 1.4 million houses until the supposed end of his term in 2004. His performance in this aspect though leaves much to be desired.

In her first State of the Nation Address last July, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared that she plans to build 50,000 houses yearly to address the massive housing backlog.

The DOHUD

She then called on Congress to work with her in this huge endeavor by speedily enacting the bill that would create the Department of Housing and Urban Development (DOHUD).

The creation of DOHUD will not resolve the housing crisis. One basic flaw of this undertaking was that it overlooked economic maldevelopment and the resulting mass poverty as the roots of urban homelessness. The government viewed the housing problem as simply the absence of shelter infrastructure. Sadly, it is the same flawed framework that past administrations used.

Market-oriented framework

The government’s housing program under DOHUD operates within a macro-urban development framework where the private sector plays a significant and major role in the delivery of housing infrastructure and services.

This leaves mass housing and its attendant social services at the mercy of profit-oriented market forces. It is no surprise therefore that housing costs adopt commercial rates and market-based interest rates which are exorbitant relative to the income level of its intended beneficiaries.

In Kasiglahan Village I, a resettlement community for urban poor families affected by the Pasig River Rehabilitation Program (PRRP) which rose to fame as Erap City during the administration of former President Joseph Estrada, the monthly amortization of PhP1,437 is deemed unaffordable by its largely unemployed residents.

Kasiglahan Village I is situated in the plains of San Jose in Rodriguez (formerly Montalban), Rizal. There is hardly any economic activity inside and within the vicinity of the resettlement as it is surrounded by mountains and ricefields.

In its attempt to render the housing cost “abot-kaya” or affordable to the poor relocatees of Kasiglahan, monthly amortization payments have been spread to a period of 25 years.

Assuming the NHA and its private real estate partner New San Jose Builders spent PhP180,000 to build a single rowhouse unit in the said village, each urban poor family would have to cough out a total of P431,262. This simply means a profit of PhP251,262 per housing unit for NHA and New San Jose Builders.

This unfortunate economic situation is no different for other government housing programs such as medium-rise housing and the much-ballyhooed community mortgage program (CMP).

Many housing units constructed by government remain unoccupied because the poor cannot simply afford them. These housing units cost PhP180,000 each at 9% interest rate per year payable within 30 years.

In fact through the years, these housing programs are considered secondary to the more lucrative economic housing programs which targets well-to-do families.

With DOHUD, the government is fully abandoning its social responsibility of providing social services especially to its marginalized constituents. Government will confine its function to that of an enabler which is limited to policy formulation and program monitoring.

Government will just set the proper environment through deregulation and the operationalization of various housing finance and multi-window schemes so that big business may invest in socialized or mass housing.

Among such schemes calls for the use of private funds of workers and employees invested in the Government Service and Insurance System (GSIS), Social Security System (SSS), and Pag-Ibig as guaranty for investors.

Government has encouraged the active participation, leadership, resources and creativity of private businesses.

But as our experience with privatization shows, the prices of goods and services skyrocket to inflationary levels. Therefore, if at present socialized housing is beyond what many poor Filipinos can afford, the creation of DOHUD and the eventual privatization of housing are expected to make matters worse.

Layoff of government employees

It is hoped that streamlining the housing bureaucracy will result in the efficient delivery of housing. Government suggests that a lean and mean bureaucracy is necessary to make its programs responsive to the housing needs of the poor.

There are presently six government housing agencies. The need to create DOHUD is based on the notion that these agencies are acting without coordination. With DOHUD, all the functions of these agencies will be subsumed under the command and control of one body.

What is not mentioned is that the streamlining of the housing bureaucracy is part of cost-cutting or austerity measures adopted by government in response to recommendations of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) which is also involved in the planned privatization of the National Food Authority (NFA).

The ADB provided $8 million in technical assistance for the study of the Philippine housing and urban development sector. This study resulted in the proposed rationalization of the housing sector which is now reflected in the proposed bill advocating the creation of DOHUD.

Streamlining the housing bureaucracy through DOHUD will mean the merger of various government agencies, the abolition of certain agencies, and the devolution of several functions to local government units.

This massive reorganization of the housing bureaucracy will only result in the massive layoff of thousands of government employees.

While the bill recommends the adoption of such safety nets as the issuance of separation pays and other benefits to affected employees, no amount of money would be enough to replace a lost job considering the magnitude of the country’s unemployment.

Indeed, mass housing is a deeply-seated, complex problem of policy and economics and thus needs a holistic and comprehensive approach. It requires an honest appreciation of the deep-rooted structural problems of the country’s politics and economics which breed mass poverty. Bulatlat.com

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