Making dreams of owning a house a reality

CEBU, Philippines - For a family whose total income is barely enough to feed its members, owning a decent home is almost like a dream.

Mary Clare Zapanta, 24, married with one child, lives in her father-in-law's house along with 17 others including 14 children and young adults: her husband's nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers, sisters and in-laws. The house has one bedroom and Mary Clare admitted that with such a small house, they cram every time all the occupants are inside, especially at night.

"Maghuot jud kay gamay ra man ang lugar," Mary Clare said. She is, however, hopeful that by next year, her own family would be transferred to a relocation site in Gawad Kalinga-Sitio Mananga Riverside, Barangay Lawaan II, as the Talisay City government promised her.

According to the study by UK-based organization Homeless International (homeless-international.org), of the 94 million people in the Philippines, about 22.8 million are in the slum areas or, in short landless. In the local scene, in Talisay City, 16,081 families are landless—some are informal dwellers in private lots or in public domain; along the coastal areas and riverbanks. A huge chunk of this number are with extended families, sharing one small house with grandparents, parents, sisters, brothers, etcetera.

Mary Clare's father-in-law Ricardo Reponte, a pedal-powered tricycle or " trisikad" driver, was awarded by the Talisay City government in 1998 a house and lot, where he (his wife had already died), his family and his children's children are now occupying. Ricardo, who still drives a trisikad despite his age, pays his monthly amortization of P120 to the government. It's still a long way to go for Ricardo, as it is a 30-year contract for his house and lot, but at least the amortization is cheap, plus, his granddaughter Maryleth, who is married to a trisikad driver, now pays half of the amount.

The Sitio Oregano site, which has a total lot area of 5,712 square meters, is one of the first housing relocation areas of the city government, Maghaway being the first. Based on the records of the Talisay City Local Housing Office (LHO), this area has 74 beneficiaries and among them is Ricardo. Lagrimas Abarquez, head of LHO, said that to date, the city has a total of 23 relocation sites, city-owned or bought and developed for its landless and homeless constituents. The biggest of these relocation sites, as per LHO records, is that in Maghaway, established in 1998 but earlier than Sitio Oregano, with a total of 60,000 square meters of land area. About 219 off-site families are now living in that part of the upland barangay of Maghaway. Abarquez said every year the city allocates P50 million for lot purchases for its urban poor families. She, however, admitted they could not easily address this problem of increasing homelessness in Talisay, especially that the rate of its growth is faster than the city's lot purchases.

From the 8,776 potential socialized housing beneficiaries in 1999, the number has doubled in 2011 (the last registration) at 16,081 families.  Abarquez admitted there could be more as the number does not include the unregistered homeless/landless families in Talisay, and will likely to increase again in next year's registration (the LHO conducts registration every three years). Today, all of the city's 23 sites are fully occupied except for the one in Sitio Cainta (Barangay Pooc) lot, which has yet to be developed.

Abarquez assured that with their collection getting better, through the Localized Community Mortgage Program (LCMP), the city may be able to purchase more lots in the future. She, however, wished that with lot areas in the city getting crowded, the city would start building medium-rise buildings instead of single-detached and row houses to accommodate more beneficiaries.

As of December 31 last year, the city's total collection from beneficiaries' monthly amortization has reached to P16.4 million. From this amount, the city purchased lots, among these are the Dinawanao-dumpsite (P1 million), Santilla property (P809,000), among others, worth P8 million. The rest of the collection was spent for site development (P5 million), taxes and others. Abarquez said they now have P2.6 million as balance, kept in the housing trust fund, to be used in the next lot purchases, for the urban poor families. In Talisay, the process is that the city enrolls the qualified housing beneficiary to the LCMP, which after its approval, will then purchase the property from the owner and turn it over to the housing beneficiaries, who, in Talisay, are usually in groups-urban poor organizations. The beneficiaries then pay the monthly amortization to the LCMP. Abarquez said the contract is usually 25 to 30 years, with six percent interest added annually to the amount.

The monthly amortization is cheap (P120, P400 or a bit more, depending on the lot area), said Abarquez, which means the beneficiaries, who may be trisikad drivers or construction workers, can pay, which also means from the payment, more lots can be purchased for the next beneficiaries.

"A decent house is important for every family. Because if we let these people just build their shanties anywhere, along the riverbanks, under the bridge, that will only create another problem. Increase in crime rate is among them," Abarquez said, noting the illegal dwellings built near the Mananga Bridge in Barangay Tabunok, which is infamously known for being the hive of alleged hold-uppers, snatchers and other criminals.

The need for decent homes for poor families is one of the glaring problems of Talisay, which is also the same in every urbanized local government units in the country (Cebu City as of last year has 30,000 homeless families). The LHO chief said even the national government had trouble meeting its goal last year. She shared that in 2012, its goal was to provide 9,000 housing units to beneficiaries all over the country, but was only able to give 2,000.

Ma. Llura Layon of Philippine Commission for the Urban Poor, in a separate interview, said if the city officials were only "sincere" in implementing Republic Act 7279 or the "Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) of 1992," then the number of its homeless families would not have ballooned like it did today. Layon said shortly after UDHA was passed, LGUs were given three years to conduct inventory of possible housing relocation areas and beneficiaries "to give them time to prepare," and for them to include in their annual budget and planning the lots to be purchased commensurate to the number of beneficiaries. Under UDHA, an LGU can adapt land-swapping, land-banking, or it can identify unused public lands to be converted into relocation sites. But instead of doing it, Talisay City just went on listing all the potential housing beneficiaries every three years, seemingly unmindful if it could actually provide houses for these people, she said."Sa Talisay, wa juy effort nga katong iyang gi-register, pangitaan og paagi, kutob ra lista," Layon said.

However, despite the lapses in implementation, the Talisay City local government is the only LGU in the region that has an established and functional Localized Community Mortgage Program, a project that makes owning an affordable and decent home a reality for the urban poor. - /QSB (FREEMAN)