Treated Like Animals
Demolition of 20,000 houses begins in Bulacan

“We’re not animals that they can drive away anytime they want,” Erlinda Sarbito, 51, said in tears as she stood in the doorway of her shanty and clutched her two-month old granddaughter to her breast. Her shanty and those of other residents in Bulacan are being wrecked to make way for government’s multi-million road rehabilitation project north of Manila.

By Abner Bolos
Bulatlat

MEYCAUAYAN, Bulacan —“We are not animals that they can drive away anytime they want,” Erlinda Sarbito, 51, said in tears as she stood in the doorway of her shanty and clutched her two-month old granddaughter to her breast.

A few meters away, a demolition crew was dismantling the home of a neighbor as government officials and police armed with M-16 rifles stood by. They are among
some 20,000 families in Bulacan province whose homes will be demolished to give way to a railroad rehabilitation project of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The shanties, mostly made of used wood and rusted tin, stand no more than two meters apart on both sides of an old railroad track that has not been used for more than two decades. As many as four families manage to live in cramped space, some as small as 30 square meters.

Here in Barangay (village) Bangcal, Meycauayan, nine such homes were wrecked by the government last May 27, and 42 others will follow in this village alone if the
government goes on with the fast-tracking of the $421 million Philippine National Railroad-Modernization and Rehabilitation Project (PNR-MRP). Aside from Meycauayan, the railroad also passess through and will affect thousands of urban poor residents in the towns of Malolos, Marilao, Balagtas, Bucaoe and Calumpit – all in Bulacan, just north of Manila.

Also on that day, about three kilometers away from Bangcal, along the MacArthur hi-way in Barangay Calvario in Meycauayan’s commercial district, hundreds of members of the urban poor groups Pagkakaisa ng Mamamayan sa Riles (Pamaril) and the Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) formed a human chain to prevent the demolition of some 24 business shops also threatened with demolition because of the PNR-MRP.

Irate residents, media people and the police gathered around Nick Gonzales, municipal urban poor development officer, on the narrow passageway atop the railroad tracks as he tried to explain the on-going demolition. The throng of people were standing in front of the home of Roberto Aquino, 36, which is being dismantled and have blocked the narrow passageway.

“These people (whose homes are being demolished) are volunteers,” Gonzales shouted at the angry crows. “They agreed to vacate their homes and transfer to a relocation site being prepared for them. Their new houses will be constructed and finished within five days from now.”

Dirty tactic

Tony Galves, 45, a community leader does not believe Gonzales, however. “The government is using a dirty tactic of pressuring residents to vacate their homes,” he said. He said that 100 percent of the families will not leave their homes if an acceptable agreement between the residents and the municipal government is not reached.

Meanwhile, the nine families will live in tents at the relocation site, under the rain and the summer heat, Galvez lamented.

Negotiations to delay the demolition and avert a bloody confrontation began last May 11, according to Lilia Garcia, Pamaril-Bulacan spokesperson.

On that day, Garcia said, Meycauayan Mayor Eduardo Alarilla promised affected residents that demolition will commence two months after May, and only after an agreement has been reached between the residents and the government.

But Alarilla appears to have reneged on his promise. In his visit to Bangcal on May 27, he told complaining residents that “we cannot stop the (PNR-MRP) project of the government”

He said the relocation site along with the homes of the affected families is being constructed. He promised that houses for the nine families whose homes have been torn down will be finished within five days.

But leaders say that they will be forced to pay P750 per month for the cost of relocation, an amount they could hardly afford. Galves said that they are being asked to pay P3,125 per square meter for the 32 sq. m. lot allocated for them which the government says costs P100,000 each, and the P50,000 cost of construction for each house. A government engineer at the relocation site in barangay Baguyo confirmed that a private contractor, New San Jose Builders, will construct the homes on an average of P50,000 each.

On May 17, Garcia said, Mayor Alarilla met with the owners of the establishments in Barangay Calvario and announced that demolition of the business shops will begin on May 27. The owners of some 24 establishments vowed to oppose the demolition and reject the P50,000 offer of the municipal government.

In a statement, Boy Asis, Kadamay Bulacan chair called for a resumption of dialogue between urban leaders and the government officials to avert a bloody confrontation. He said that the relocation site being offered by the government is “not fit for human
habitation” without a water system, electricity and sewage system.

He said that the undue haste through which the demolition of homes is being implemented showed that the Arroyo government has no intention to look after the welfare of the urban poor and instead is hell-bent on constructing the project which is source of corruption and will benefit only the rich.

Sell-out

Aside from the brutal fashion in which the government wants to implement the project, Kadamay national chair Nanay Mameng Deunida describes the PNR-MRP loan
agreement with the Chinese government as a “sell-out of the nations’s patrimony.”

The $421 million loan agreement is a “very lopsided agreement wherein the Philippines surrenders her laws in favor of Chinese laws because any breach of contract can only be settled in China,” Deunida said.

The Philippine government is supposed to come up with $85 million counterpart to be used for the relocation of the affected families. But the government is in a deep financial crisis and Congress has not allocated such amount for the purpose, according to Sen. Aquilino Pimentel.

The government’s commitment to construct the PNR-MRP despite the absence of funds for relocation may well explain the strong-arm tactics being used to implement the project.

Lady Love Arenas, Kadamay information officer, explains that once the government fails to complete the project or violates the loan agreement, China may sue in its own courts and lay the ground for sequestration of assets owned by the Philippine government.

“Government-owned and -controlled corporations may end up being owned by the Chinese government. Instead of helping poor Filipinos, President Arroyo may have
mortgaged our future,” Arenas said.

Urban poor leaders appear to have lost hope of succor from the Arroyo government and issued some warning. “We remind this government,” Deunida said, “that the easiest way to make the people believe that violence is the only way to resolve both the economic and political oppression being suffered by them is to give no room for dialogue.” Bulatlat

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