Housing the filipino

That’s it, there’s no mistake about it; this country is definitely under attack from terrorists. Many shudder from the possibility that next year the country will grind to a halt, economically, socially and culturally. All because of the terror of JI (Just Insane) politics, we will all be soft targets of fellow Filipinos who have nothing better to do than perpetuate the longest running joke in the country’s so-called democracy.

In the meanwhile, just before everything is obscured by millions of grubby posters on our walls and the never-ending envelopmental-media noise, a group of more rational people are meeting early next month to try and figure out a direction the country can take on one of the most important and basic issues of our survival – housing.

This November 4 and 5, the Luis A. Yulo Foundation for Sustainable Development is hosting the fourth in a series of lectures on urbanism and sustainable development at the social hall of the DBP Building in Makati. The conference/workshop, which is open to the public, is called Housing and Urbanism: Designing for Sustainability.

The problem with housing is that there is not enough of it to house a country with definitely more than enough of its share of population. Depending on whose statistics you look at, the shortfall is between four and five million housing units. That’s not taking into account the existing housing stock, which is deteriorating as we speak, with most holding more than the one family they were originally built for.

Sheltering Hope

Although the government is taking some steps, it will take a whole reorientation of both civil society and the bureaucracy to address the situation. Although it may seem to most that not much has been done, there are a few rays of hope. One of these is the CMP program. The Community Mortgage Program of the government allows informal settlers (who make up a fourth to a third of the population of all our cities) to actually buy the land they are settled on and build permanently.

I was invited to the opening of a multi-purpose center of one CMP success story a few days ago. The LPLU Multi-Purpose Center is a modest three-story structure serving the sitio of Nagpayong in Barangay Pinagbuhatan, Pasig. It houses a pre-school, a meeting hall and the sitio’s water tank. This is where I came in. Actually, I was standing in for Tina Bonoan, the feisty but fashionable former editor-in-chief of BluPrint magazine. Her last project at the magazine before she turned over the reins to me was a charity auction. The beneficiary was the PBSP (Philippine Business for Social Progress), which had among its many projects with the urban poor in mind, a water supply program. The final beneficiary of the several hundred thousand pesos raised was Sitio Nagpayong.

Nagpayong is a successful CMP project which houses 146 families. It took the good people of the sitio over 18 years to finally manage to get the paperwork done and buy the land. Their perseverance paid off. They managed to divide the small property into a grid of lots, each 20 square meters in area. PBSP was a partner in the improvement of the sitio’s infrastructure. They helped augment the Pasig government’s utility infrastructure (water wells). PBSP assisted the sitio’s energetic homeowner’s association led by Generoso Pauyon in concreting the site’s main access roads. Then there was the multi-purpose center, the jewel of the neighborhood.

The structure was the final major piece in declaring that the sitio had made it. It stands proud, fronting a small piazza, which doubles as a half-court basketball court and fiesta area. Aside from yours truly representing BluPrint and Mega Magazines & Publications Inc., the handover involved other donors led by Teddy Kingsu representing the Angelo King Foundation, Manuel Moraza, PBSP trustee and guest Attorney Roy Puno. Other PBSP officials, Barangay Captain Rodrigo Asilo, Councilor Bobby Eusebio and the mayor herself, Soledad C. Eusebio, graced the event.

Before the actual ceremonies, I took the chance to tour the sitio with the PBSP staff. The structures showed a variety of architectural styles. It was amazing how efficient self-built housing can evolve. Our informal settlers have had three generations of creating both an informal engineering method and design sensibility that bypasses both formal architectural design training and the national building code. People make do with the materials they have and eke out as much space they can from whatever is given them. There are shortcomings to be sure. Fire is still a hazard and the sewerage system is almost non-existent. But all in all the people of sitio Nagpayong did a good job. PBSP and their own homeowners’ association have to be given well-deserved praise.

Options For Sustainable Housing

Nagpayong is just one of thousands of sitios in Metro Manila. It has less than a thousand souls that now have security of tenure and an increased quality of life. Not much could be said for the rest of us. Of course quality of life is a relative term. It’s useless to compare ourselves even with our neighbors Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore. Our comparison group is Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Indochinese countries.

If CMP were applied to all the informal settlements in the city we would not have enough land to give 20 square meters to every family. There is just not enough land. Putting things in a different perspective, there are too many people and everyone wants a house and a lot. Even if government went the way of higher-density housing (in MRBs – medium-rise buildings) there still would not be enough. We need not even mention the government’s spotty record in this regard.

Private housing developers, on the other hand, turn the problem on its head and head out to the boondocks. Affordable housing is now only affordable if you can stand being three hours away from everything except fastfoods and traffic. We are sprawling ourselves to kingdom come while choking ourselves to oblivion with the requisite pollutive car/jeepney/FX-based transport system. Something has to give – and in Metro Manila it already has – our sanity.

We are living in an insane world. Even removing the inanity of our politics many wonder why we cannot solve our housing and related metropolitan problems in a sustainable way. We have the best architects, planners (physical and economic), environmental scientists, urban-poor organizers, environmental do-gooders, do-gooding corporate foundations but the solutions are not forthcoming. Maybe it just takes time, but time for us has about run out.

The Yulo conference in November shows just how urgent the situation is. Speakers from academe, NGOs, and the private sector will speak. Mayor Abalos and Secretary Mike Defensor have been invited to deliver key lectures on government programs at both local and national levels. Distinguished planners Dinky Einsedel and Art Corpuz are presenting the physical and economic aspects of urban development. Dr. Emma Porio of the Ateneo and Ino Manalo of the Metropolitan Museum are giving light to the sociological and cultural aspects of the housing problem. Bill Keys of Freedom to Build and Michael Linfield of the ADB broaden the discussions while Celine Vicente, of the Manila Observatory and Rajeev Kathpalia of the Vastu Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research in Environmental Design look at the larger impact of current interventions.

The conference’s second day will end with a workshop moderated by various planners, like Dr. Ronnie Manahan of PROS and Jun Palafox, and deans of schools of architecture in the country – UST, UP, FEU and MLQU. The conference and workshop are open to professionals, students and the general public. All have a say in what hopefully will emerge as a menu of options and a rational direction we all hope that the housing program could take.

We all hope that whatever these are, they would be taken seriously by whoever sits in power by the end of next year. The conference organizers hope that the impetus to solve our housing problem is sustained by them and by all those who currently are doing their damnedest best to make sure that every Filipino is housed in dignity, in health and in his own home.

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"Housing and Urbanism: Designing for Sustainability" will be held at the Development Bank of the Philippine Social Hall in Makati on November 5 and 6. For details and/or reservations call 848-1639 or visit www.mycanlubang.com.

Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at citysensephilstar@hotmail.com.