Informal settlers to storm NHA to protest alleged ISF anomaly

MANILA, Philippines - Informal settler-families who have been relocated to Rodriguez, Rizal are set to stage a protest action today at the National Housing Authority's (NHA) main office in Quezon City against the alleged corruption in the Informal Settler Fund (ISF) worth P11.05 billion under the Disbursement Acceleration Program.

Members of Montalban Relocatees' Alliance will assail the government's off-city relocation program that has allegedly victimized thousands of informal settlers, despite the provision that the ISF should be used for in-city relocation of the urban poor.

The NHA has claimed that with the P10 billion ISF for the housing projects of settlers along waterways in Metro Manila, 21,000 of the 25,000 housing units are already constructed, while the construction of remaining units is still on-going.

The MRA, however, believes that parts of the ISF have been corrupted by some officials of the Aquino administration, as housing units in off-city relocation sites are substandard in construction and bereft of basic social services.

Meanwhile, two years after the roof-high Habagat flood that engulfed and buried the Montalban relocation sites in tons of mud, relocatees still fear for a repeat of the tragedy as the NHA has done nothing despite the billions of ISF.

To show their anger, relocatees will hit the seal of the agency with loads of mud to slam the corruption in the agency and its futility in administering the government's relocation sites.

Relocatees also plan to join the Luneta mobilization for the People's Initiative to scrap the pork barrel system after their NHA protest.