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

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