House panel endorses creation of housing department

The House committee on housing and urban development endorsed yesterday a consolidated bill that seeks the creation of a Department of Housing and Urban Development (DHUD).

The committee made the decision even as hundreds of employees of the National Housing Authority (NHA) demonstrated in front of the Batasan complex in Quezon City to oppose the bill.

In a statement, the NHA workers said Congress, if it enacts the measure, would deliver to private real estate developers billions in funds appropriated for low-cost mass housing.

Davao City Rep. Prospero Nograles, housing committee chairman, said there is a need to create the DHUD "to effectively orchestrate the country’s housing delivery system."

He said the new agency "will prepare, integrate, coordinate, supervise, and control plans, programs, projects, and activities of the government relative to urban planning, development, and renewal, including land use and zoning, housing provision, regulation and finance, and marginal settlement assistance and services."

He said the proposed housing department would replace the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, which is headed by President Arroyo’s housing czar, former Quezon City Rep. Michael Defensor.

He added that the bill is a consolidation of nine similar measures authored by 23 congressmen, including Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr.

The bill also seeks the creation of the Social Housing Fund to be generated out of contributions from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and the Philippine Gaming and Amusement Corp.

It would rename NHA as National Housing Corp.

Nograles said the renaming of NHA would not result in the layoff of employees.

"No one is going to be sacrificed," he said.

Aside from NHA, other agencies to be attached to the planned DHUD are the Home Guarantee Corp., National Housing Mortgage Finance Corp., Home Development Mutual Fund, and the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board, which would be renamed Real Estate Adjudication Commission.

Defensor, who now holds Cabinet rank, is expected to head the new addition to the bureaucracy.