New life for Caloocan rail dwellers

Some 45 families who where uprooted from the Philippine National Railways (PNR) property this week in Caloocan City, to pave the way for construction of the initial stages of the North Railway Development Project are now living new lives in their resettlement community in San Jose del Monte in Bulacan.

This was announced yesterday by National Housing Authority (NHA) General Manager Edgardo Pamintuan even as he called on other families still resisting the relocation program being offered by the government. A few families continued to defy government orders to dismantle their homes at the PNR property in Sangandaan and be relocated to the new resettlement area.

"We are offering these families the best assistance we could offer and there is no reason for them to refuse this. We are not only moving them away from polluted and dangerous places but precisely giving them the opportunity to live decent, peaceful and safer lives at the resettlement areas," Pamintuan said.

Quoting records, Pamintuan said some 15 of the relocatees have already availed of the housing materials loan amounting to P50,000 each household for their house construction requirements at the Towerville Homes in Barangay Minuyan and Sto. Cristo in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan. Other families have also availed of the livelihood assistance loan amounting to P25,000 each, the official said.

These only prove the sincerity of the government in alleviating poverty and abject misery of the poor in the city, he added.

Meanwhile, informal settlers already in place in Pag-asa, a 24-hectare (240,000-square meter) government property in Camarin, Caloocan City, were roused from their relatively quiet Friday night when rail dwellers, accompanied allegedly by some overeager Caloocan City Hall functionaries, started tearing down fences of unoccupied lots in the area.

Former Pag-asa Homeowners Association vice president Juliet Corazon Patiño called up The STAR at around 7 p.m. that a certain Danilo Gomez, allegedly from the Office of City Mayor Reynaldo Malonzo, led the tearing down activities in the 600 square meter-property occupied by a Sol Ykalina along Bonifacio Street in Barangay 175, Pag-asa, Camarin, Caloocan City.

Patiño claimed that the area is private property now owned by the heirs of Dolores Alvarez and Leon Quioge and supported allegedly by papers dating back to 1927. She also, however, said that they do not have the titles to the land they are now occupying.