ANGELES CITY, Philippines – Vice President and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council Chairman Jejomar Binay yesterday expressed confidence that the country’s 3.6 million housing backlog would be reduced to at least one million at the end of his term in 2016.
Binay told The STAR after distributing land titles to the victims of Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption at the Epza resettlement here that the government is constructing more affordable housing units to significantly reduce the backlog.
“We are constructing new models. In fact, under PagIBIG housing we are constructing units that cost only P200,000. Usually the lowest cost of PagIBIG units is P400,000,” he said.
Binay distributed 175 land titles to families occupying houses on 94-square-meter lots at the Epza resettlement in Barangay Pulung Cacutud.
Binay said he ordered National Housing Authority general manager Chito Cruz to speed up the completion and distribution of land titles to all qualified residents in 16 resettlement areas in Pampanga, Tarlac and Zambales.
Binay noted that since 1994, only 358 families at the Epza resettlement received their land titles.
Of the 1,553 beneficiaries of the housing project in Epza, more than 1,000 has yet to receive their land titles, he added.
The Vice President asked the beneficiaries to take care of the houses that were awarded to them. He said those who sold their lots were barred from availing themselves of other government housing projects.
Binay also awarded on Saturday land titles to 38 beneficiaries of the Social Housing Finance Corp.’s Community Mortgage Program in Cebu.
He also witnessed the signing of a memorandum of agreement between the provincial government of Cebu and 13 homeowners’ associations for the distribution of lots to the families in nine barangays covered by Provincial Board Resolution 93. – With Jose Rodel Clapano, Ric Sapnu