Resettlement site for informal settlers underway

MANILA, Philippines - Some 120 families living along the Estero de San Miguel in Manila will soon be relocated after the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) recently led the groundbreaking for a housing project that would benefit them.

The relocation of the informal settlers is part of the plan of the MMDA and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to remove some 20,000 illegal settlers in six major waterways in the metropolis.

DILG Secretary Mar Roxas said unlike previous relocation efforts, the new master plan provides for the transfer of informal settlers to sites not far from their sources of livelihood, and from their children’s schools.

“This program is for people who live in areas considered as danger zones. They live very near creeks where water rises during heavy and continuous downpour, thereby putting their lives at risk,” Roxas said.

Instead of relocating informal settlers outside Metro Manila, he said President Aquino has ordered government agencies to make sure that these families would not be transferred far from where they used to live.

“So this near-site or onsite relocation is being eyed as the solution. They won’t be relocated far from the esteros where they are living, and they will be given permanent place,” he said.

The DILG chief said livelihood is a prime consideration for residents of Estero de San Miguel because they earn about P5,000 to P10,000 monthly from selling newspapers, maintaining small sari-sari stores, or by taking odd jobs.

The housing project consists of several medium rise buildings to be built in Barangay 412, Zone 42 in Sampaloc, and at the corner of J.P. Laurel and Legarda streets in San Miguel.

The average cost of one housing unit is about P400,000.

Roxas said the President has ordered the release of P10 billion every year for the housing and relocation of informal settlers.