Is there a solution to the squatting problem?

ON DISTANT SHORE
By Val G. Abelgas

Manila shantytown

For decades, the Philippine government has been trying to find a lasting solution to the nagging problem of squatters in Metro Manila, far longer than the efforts to solve the equally and seemingly unsolvable communist and Muslim insurgency problems. These problems are like body itch. You scratch one area and the itch reappears in even more places in your body.

In the Fifties, people from the provinces started gravitating towards Manila, where like moths to a light, the rural folk hoped to build a better future for themselves and their family. Many of these dreamers had grown tired of the feudal trap that had stuck them in the farmlands of their respective provinces. And so they traveled all the way to Manila where they were told jobs were easy to find and where opportunities were unlimited, especially for those willing to work hard.

Many of them landed in Intramuros, where the walls built by the Spaniards more than a century ago provided them a sense of security. Others found their way to vacant lands near where some distant relatives lived such as in Tondo, Binondo, San Andres Bukid, Pandacan and other areas where job sites were nearby.

They found out later that while there were indeed jobs, the earnings were not enough for their growing families. And the opportunities were not as unlimited as they were made to believe. And so many of them got stuck in another trap – poverty and the slums.

In the Sixties, then Mayor Antonio Villegas drove them out of Intramuros, which had become a no-man’s land where bodies were dumped and where even policemen wouldn’t dare enter. But soon they were back. And driven away again. A few families dared come back and have stayed there amid the emergence of Intramuros as a favorite tourist destination, mingling with visitors, some begging for alms.

The same thing happened in other squatter areas. They would be driven out and relocated to faraway resettlement areas such as the Sapang Palay and Dagat-Dagatan, but because the relocation sites were far from their jobs and other means of livelihood, they were soon trickling back to other areas inside Metro Manila.

As the population grew by leaps and bounds — thanks to the Catholic Church’s adamant refusal to educate the people on birth control and family planning — jobs became even more scarce and poverty incidence worsened, squatter colonies soon sprouted on nearly all available space in Metro Manila – on vacant government and private lands, near esteros and waterways, and along railroad tracks.

As the “informal settlers,” the politically correct term for them, became entrenched in their newfound territory, it became even more difficult to remove them. Every attempt to evict them was met with violent resistance. Even President Aquino had to suspend the removal of squatter shanties in the government center in Quezon City in 2010 after thousands of residents fought with policemen and demolition crews.

Politicians have long been blamed for coddling them, but politicians are politicians and squatters are voters, so what do you expect?

There have been many attempts to solve the nagging problem, many of them using the carrot and stick approach. President Marcos made evicting squatters easy by criminalizing the act of squatting. Presidential Decree 772 issued in 1975 punished “any person who, with the use of force, intimidation or threat, or taking advantage of the absence or tolerance of the landowner, succeeds in occupying or possessing the property of the latter against his will for residential commercial or any other purposes” with imprisonment and fine.

Thousands of squatters were evicted, some of them jailed, using this decree. But like almost all Marcos decrees, PD 772 was repealed by Republic Act 8368 and replaced by RA 7279, otherwise known as the Lina Law after its principal author, Sen. Joey Lina, which required landowners to find a relocation site before they can ask the squatters to move out. Under the law, only “professional squatters” may be evicted. The law only encouraged more squatters to come into the urban centers.

The Marcos government also used the carrot, thru the First Lady Imelda Marcos, by building low-cost housing projects called BLISS that were meant for the very poor, but ended up accommodating the middle class simply because the poor squatters could not afford them.

Later, Mrs. Marcos launched on-site development projects, where the residents did not have to leave the premises. But corruption also wrecked the projects and beyond building narrow concrete roads inside the slums, nothing else was improved. The sites remained slums with narrow concrete roads.

Unable to make them leave or at least make the slums look better, Mrs. Marcos decided to just wall them in, and at least make them disappear from the view of foreign visitors and dignitaries.

During the time of President Cory Aquino, the government launched the Community Mortgage Program (CMP) in 1989 that aimed to turn over the lands to the squatters. But it required squatters to organize into associations because the land was sold to the association and not to individual families. The government did not provide for subsidy to purchase the land, and the squatter families had to pay for interests on the loans. Of course, it failed.

In 2007, President Gloria Arroyo formed a committee composed of various government agencies to come out with a shelter program for the country’s squatters. But it did not entice the informal settlers as the initial housing sites were far away from their places of work. One resident, for example, complained that transportation costs to her place of work took one-third of her monthly income, leaving very little for her family’s subsistence, much less to pay the mortgage.

And now, President Noynoy Aquino is again using carrots to solve the problem. In 2011, in a talk with reporters in Jakarta, Aquino said that more than half a million squatter families in Metro Manila will be relocated and receive two hectares of farm land each under his administration’s program on illegal settlers. He said the government has identified some 1.5 million hectares of farmland that could be distributed to an initial 560,000 squatter families in Metro Manila in a bid to decongest the capital and improve agricultural production nationwide.

“The Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environment inventory shows we can lend, lease or give two hectares of land per indigent family provided they cultivate agricultural crops, develop, and earn from the land they will live on. If they fail to stick to these conditions, the land will be taken from them,” Aquino said.

The program at least recognized the need to find a long-term solution to the squatting problem, and the need to decongest Metro Manila and to reenergize agriculture.

I had some misgivings about giving two-hectare farmlands to each squatter family. Unless these families are given the proper motivation, the proper training and the proper support in terms of financing and buyer network, they will eventually end up selling or abandoning their small farmlands and go back to the big city, where work is available.

Remember that most of these squatter families have been away from farms and fishing villagers for years and some may not even have seen a farm in their lives, and unless properly motivated and trained, may not find farming worthwhile. The experience of Sapang Palay and other relocation projects should serve as a reminder to the program planners of the need to look at relocating efforts as part of a comprehensive national development package, not just as an aspirin solution.

For one, they have to convince the squatter families that they would have sufficient livelihood in their new home and that the government would give them the necessary training and assistance. I said then that perhaps, instead of giving each family two hectares of farmland, give them sufficient lot for their homes and allot a bigger farmland to be managed by a farming cooperative owned collectively by the beneficiary families in the area. The cooperatives would hire workers from the relocated families, who will at the same time be owners of the cooperatives. That way the relocated squatters would have paid work and motivation to make the cooperative succeed, thus enhancing the chance of survival and growth of both the farm and the resettlement area.

But after arriving from Jakarta, nobody cared to follow up with the President. Either Aquino was advised that the program was not viable or just like his other promises, it just burst into thin air.

That same year, Aquino unveiled a P50-billion relocation plan for the 100,000 families of informal settlers, or P10 billion a year until he steps down in 2016. Two years since, nothing has been done about it.

And now, Aquino is talking of a new program to remove the squatters out of danger’s way and into safer and more decent dwellings. Aquino said the government is offering P18,000 to each of the 20,000 families of informal settlers living along waterways in Metro Manila so they can rent decent and safe homes elsewhere for 12 months while officials are looking for a place to resettle them permanently.

Obviously, it’s another Aquino program that was announced hush-hush in time for the onset of the rainy season and amid accusations that his administration has not done anything about the floods.

The NGO Urban Poor Associates (UPA) said the government offer is another “band-aid solution” to the housing problem, adding that the amount’s monthly equivalent of P1,500 is just enough to rent a room in a squatter colony or slum area.

So how do you solve the problem involving 544,609 households, or 21% of the entire household population in Metro Manila?

The Philippine Daily Inquirer, in a survey, gave readers four choices, or to make their own suggestions:

• Nothing, just let the squatters do what they want to do

• Just give squatters the title to the land they are occupying

• Relocate them to a different site and offer affordable housing

• Just destroy their houses and prevent them from returning

Which one is yours?

(valabelgas@aol.com)