Kadamay ‘pasaway’

Whatever emotional ranting we hear from homeless families for being poor, this is not justification for any one of them to willfully take over and occupy vacant units in government housing projects. Legitimate owners of units in this government housing intended for public school teachers, policemen and soldiers suddenly find their property sequestered and grabbed by militant urban poor groups.

We taxpayers have been paying for this kindness that the State extends to less privileged sectors of society. This we are made to bear through government subsidized housing projects and resettlement sites for the “informal dwellers,” or the politically correct term for squatters.

Take the case of this particular group of purported urban poor families who banded together and call themselves Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay). Since March 8, Kadamay members have taken over and occupied a total of 3,500 housing units in seven different housing projects in the town of Pandi in Bulacan.

Their reason for taking over these vacant units is simply because no one has been living on these government-built houses while they suffer without roofs over their heads and ignored. Rather than letting these houses slowly rot away, the Kadamay leaders took over these housing units even if they did not pay a single cent to put them up. This is their version of social justice they are invoking for their illegal, if not criminal acts.

 Being poor is no license to commit criminal acts.

This is the same policy declaration expressed no less by President Rodrigo Duterte when he came under fire for the many deaths of his administration’s war against illegal drugs.

Critics of President Duterte denounced the administration’s anti-drug war as having killed only drug suspects who were mainly poor living in slum areas and shanties.

President Duterte pointed out poverty is no justification for anybody to engage in the deadly trade of drug trafficking that turn fellow Filipinos into mindless drug addicts. Whether rich or poor, the foul-mouthed President Duterte vowed to spare no one. And there won’t be mercy, the President warned, if they fight back police authorities.

The tough-talking Chief Executive applied the same policy declaration when he first learned about the Kadamay’s invasion in Pandi. Sternly reminding the Kadamay, President Duterte told them during his Malacañang press conference: “If you want to ignore the law, you cannot do that. I will force the issue with eviction. Tutal, kung gusto man ninyo, huwag mo lang akong palagay sa alanganin,” Duterte said.

Furthermore, the President admonished the urban poor group: “There is enough money now to go around. May pera ang gobyerno, I can give some but not all, but you will have if you want. Idaan natin sa dayalogo,” the President stressed.

Following the pronouncements of President Duterte to this urban poor group to leave the government housing projects, the National Housing Authority (NHA) last Monday issued eviction notices to Kadamay members to voluntarily vacate the said housing units within seven days upon receipt of notice.

As of March 20, the NHA reported a total of 5,262 units from Pandi and San Jose del Monte, Bulacan resettlement sites were occupied by alleged Kadamay members. These housing units were earmarked for low-salaried uniformed personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP); the Philippine National Police (PNP), to name some, and informal settler families (ISFs) around Metro Manila living along danger zones and waterways who were being resettled by the national government.

Carlito Badion, secretary-general of Kadamay, however, vowed their group will not leave the occupied housing units and will continue to fight for the right of the poor to have their own dwelling place. He said Kadamay is willing to provide the master list of the members who took over the NHA housing units as their compliance to qualify for award of these vacant houses.

Militant groups – Alliance of Concerned Teachers, Akbayan, Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Anak Pawis and Kabataan Partylist – went to the different housing projects occupied by Kadamay members to show their support and took turns in assailing the government housing programs.

But what is more disturbing is the official statement by Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Sec. Judy Taguiwalo to defend the distribution by her agency of food packages to more than 2,000 Kadamay members who trooped to Pandi last March 16. Each family was given six kilos of rice, eight cans of corned beef and sardines and six sachets of 3-in-1 coffee.

One of the so-called left-leaning Duterte Cabinet members, Taguiwalo cited it is the responsibility of the government to provide support to Filipinos in need of immediate assistance. Giving food packs, Taguiwalo argued, does not translate to supporting the takeover, whether Kadamay act of occupying vacant houses is illegal or not is not the immediate concern of the DSWD but by the NHA and other housing agencies of the government.

The Pandi housing project is under the NHA as the government agency mandated to provide low-cost housing. It is currently headed by Marcelino Escalada Jr. as general manager. The NHA is among government agencies under the umbrella of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) now headed by Cabinet Secretary Chair Leoncio B. Evasco Jr. Like Taguiwalo, Evasco used to be aligned with the local communist movement.

Yes, he is the same Evasco who sent the text message in December last year to Vice President Leni Robredo that President Duterte purportedly did not want her to sit in the Cabinet meeting. Because of that text message, VP Robredo – who used to chair the HUDCC– decided to resign instead from the Cabinet. Since the HUDCC was attached under the Cabinet Secretary, Evasco took over from the HUDCC after the Vice President resigned.

As HUDCC, Evasco stated: “We are sad it happened this way, yet let this be a reminder to government to act now and provide housing to those who need it the most.”

National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) chairperson Lisa Maza, formerly Gabriela party list representative, told radio interviews eviction of the illegal occupants of the NHA housing units is not the solution to the problem. So how do you address it?

Just where does such boldness of Kadamay to take over private property come from? We could only look around the people now supporting the militants from Kadamay which in this case in Tagalog could mean “abetting” them in their illegal acts.