DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Business and civic leader Joji Ilagan-Bian is batting for an integrated and master-planned development that includes leasable but decent housing for the poor in areas nearest to their sources of livelihood.
“This requires the construction of medium-rise residential complexes within city limits featuring housing units that informal settlers can afford to rent and which can provide them with water and power supply, and convenient access to education, healthcare, skills training, employment and livelihood opportunities,” Bian said in a statement.
She said that even the poorest of the poor deserved a master-planned and fully integrated community development.
Bian issued this statement in opposing the usual practice of relocating squatters to far-flung areas with limited water and power supply and without enough facilities for their basic needs, “as if they were being exiled or displaced” from work.
“These people have flocked to Davao City for work and are now an important component of our human resources that contribute significantly to our overall economic productivity,” she said.
She said relocating them to low-cost housing villages in areas too far from their places of work could seriously aggravate the city’s recklessly expanding urban sprawl, thus only worsening the impact of urbanization on the marginalized sector.
Urban sprawl is a global problem often blamed for traffic congestion, pollution, increase in fuel consumption, and difficulties in governance, as it exerts pressure on a city’s ability to cope with the growing requirements for utilities, transportation, sanitation, disease prevention, employment, peace and order, and education.