It is squatter, er, informal settlers, time in Cebu City again, a problem that rears its ugly head every now and then not only here but in other places as well. A slew of ugly demolitions and confrontations later, and the problem gets shoved under the rug again.
Yet, despite the regularity with which the problem seems to arise and hound communities in the Philippines, nothing truly significant has been done to address it with a finality, with the single distinct exception being the resolve to bestow on squatters a supposedly politically correct name -- informal settlers.
But political correctness does not solve anything. Neither does it serve to dignify anyone one bit. For as long as squatters are deprived of the opportunity to earn decent livelihoods with which to secure decent abodes, you can call them emperors or cardinals but you cannot alleviate poverty with grandness of titles.
Yet this government, and the society it governs, persists in the illusion that appellation alone works to change things. Reality, of course, tells us it does not. On the contrary, this living in an illusion only leads that government, and that society, even farther down the wrong road.
Again, the underprivileged only want minimum opportunities with which they can stand on their own two feet. But not only does the conspiracy between government and society deprive them of those opportunities, it continues to feed them with even more illusory benefits.
For instance, much hype clothes the pretense of bestowing them human rights. But what human right is that that gives to squatters and takes away from the land owners. There is no dog with that kind of collar in the real world. Any human right there is should apply with equal force to all.
Thus you do not dignify squatters by giving them palatable titles and deceive them into believing it is perfectly all right for them to grab the lands of other people so long as they have squatted on those lands long enough. That is a lot of baloney.
If government truly wants to solve this problem, it should make an inventory of all legitimate squatters, throw into jail the bogus ones, inventory all government land and apportion them to these homeless citizens, then invest in their economic upliftment. Check on them later and jail the recalcitrants.