EDITORIAL - Failure of enforcement

The violent demolition of shanties in a slum area in Parañaque recently will not be the last in Metro Manila and other urban centers. A moratorium ordered by the Department of the Interior and Local Government will be set aside soon enough, when some property owner secures a court order allowing the demolition of illegal structures on private land.

Local government units will not have these problems if they enforced from the start, together with the local police, existing laws against squatting. Those laws require barangay officials and police to keep an eye out for encroachments on private property and public land, and to drive out illegal settlers as soon as they attempt to build makeshift structures.

One look around Metro Manila and in cities now suffering from urban blight such as Baguio will show the failure of local government and law enforcement. Shanties are built not just on vacant lots but also under bridges, along the banks of creeks and rivers, and in the case of Baguio, along the once scenic slopes. In Metro Manila, natural rainwater paths blocked by illegal structures have worsened flooding.

Local executives encourage squatting because informal settlers can vote wherever they set up their makeshift homes. Many local power bases are built on the votes of squatter communities. Instead of working with other local executives so that squatters can be relocated elsewhere, to decent homes with livelihood opportunities and basic services including schools and health centers, these local executives nurture their power base with regular dole-outs, courtesy of Juan de la Cruz.

Once settled in a community, informal settlers will risk their lives to remain there, even if a private individual has legitimate claim to the land. There are large swathes of Metro Manila that are occupied by such informal settlers. Now the national government is trying to figure out how to strike a balance between humane treatment of the impoverished and discouragement of anarchy. In many of these cases, local executives have no one to blame but themselves.