Abstract
This chapter analyzed closely the suitability and accessibility of the Southville Rodriguez Housing Project (SRHP), a government relocation site for Typhoon Ketsana victims in the Philippines, vis-à-vis the legal provisions of international conventions on post-disaster recovery of displaced persons and the country’s Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction Act of 2010 (PDRRMA) on post-disaster management of disaster victims. It examined the official laws and standards regarding the selection and accessibility of relocation sites for disaster victims under the “build back better” (BBB) principle and described the extent of conformity of the current resettlement of the Typhoon Ketsana victims to these standards. Owing to corruption and undue benefits given by the government to its accredited private developers of resettlements, the conditions of the relocation site of Typhoon Ketsana victims in SRHP largely deviated from the international standards and provisions of PDRRMA regarding the suitability and accessibility of relocation sites for disaster victims. The SRHP is not only remote, dangerous, and disaster-prone, but it is also physically and socially inaccessible to poor disaster victims.
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Notes
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President Benigno Aquino III issued Executive Order No. 136 creating the public‒private partnership (PPP) and amending Executive Order No. 8 (S. 2010), which reorganized and renamed the build‒operate and transfer center to the Public–Private Partnership Center of the Philippines. Under the PPP, private businesses are given more power to participate in government projects with more incentives and financial and administrative assistance from the government.
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See Rule II, Sect. 5, A, 4 at http://old.hlurb.gov.ph/uploads/laws-issuances/PD957IRR/IRRPD957.pdf.
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Section 1, The Law to Enhance Mobility of Disabled Persons. Available at http://www.architectureboard.ph/uploads/1331233623-Accessibility%20Law%20%28B.P.344%29.pdf.
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Ibid, p. 11.
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During fieldwork in the SRHP last November 2012, I saw disaster victims in temporary evacuation shelters in front of San Isidro Barangay hall. I was informed by barangay officials that they had been staying there for months waiting for their housing application to be finally approved by the NHA. The NHA will issue them a stub denoting the block and lot number assigned to them before they can occupy the housing units in the SRHP.
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According to Mercy Merilles, the spokesperson of the Montalban (Rodriguez) Relocatees Association (MRA), the national government, through the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), released PHP 10 Billion ($227) annually to fund government relocation programs and had, so far, disbursed PHP 27 Billion ($613.6) to government housing agencies such as the NHA. This fund constituted the Informal Settlers Fund, which, according to her, became the milking cow of corrupt NHA officials and source of business capital for low-cost housing firms. See: “What Safer Place? Urban Poor Relocatees Rebuffs Aquino”, available at http://bulatlat.com/main/2014/07/16/what-safer-place-urban-poor-relocatees-rebuff-aquino/.
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The owner of San Jose Builders, one of the developers of SRHP, for instance, is said to maintain powerful connections with Malacanang, the seat of power in the country. During the Estrada Administration, San Jose Builders became the developer of the huge Erap City or the Kasiglahan Village Relocation Area in Rodriguez, Rizal. As a sign of gratitude, the PCIJ reported that San Jose Builders gave Estrada the Boracay Mansion and renovated the home of Estrada’s mistress in the Forbes Park Subdivision in Makati City. He seemed to continue to enjoy close connections with Malacanang because the President Aquino’s executive secretary is said to be his brother-in-law. See: http://bulatlat.com/main/2014/07/16/what-safer-place-urban-poor-relocatees-rebuff-aquino/.
- 14.
San Jose Builders, as one of the developers of the SRHP Housing project, is said to have strong ties with top government officials including presidents. According to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) report, it became the developer of a neighboring relocation site popularly known as Erap City because of its strong connection with the former Philippine President Joseph “Erap” Estrada: See Florentino-Hofilenia “Erap City” at http://pcij.org/stories/2000/erapcity.html.
- 15.
[R]equiring the financial system to take out or guarantee subprime loans implies that the government assumes 100% of the risk and that the resulting nonperforming loans translate to impaired assets and losses from the sale of these assets. The costs arising from the associated defaults of these loans amounted to more than PHP 1.0 billion in 2009 alone (Ballesteros, 2011, p. 6).
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LGU’s Guidebook, p. 14.
- 18.
“‘Professional squatters’ refers to individuals or groups who occupy lands without the express consent of the landowner and who have sufficient income for legitimate housing. The term shall also apply to persons who have previously been awarded home lots or housing units by the Government but who sold, leased or transferred the same to settle illegally in the same place or in another urban area, and non-bona fide occupants and intruders of lands reserved for socialized housing. The term shall not apply to individuals or groups who simply rent land and housing from professional squatters or squatting syndicates” (UDHA, Sect. 3 [m]).
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Some informants revealed that they had difficulty securing the documents because the flood had washed away all their belongings. Moreover, it is more expensive for them to go to different government agencies just to obtain a copy of certificates for their application.
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Ballano, V.O. (2017). Suitability and Accessibility of the Relocation Site. In: Law, Normative Pluralism, and Post-Disaster Recovery. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5074-9_5
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