State of Socialized Housing in the Philippines
There are 5.8 million housing backlogs. Government statistics show demand-supply mismatch in the Philippines – large supply to mid-cost and high end; while there is lack of supply but large demand in socialized to low cost housing.
Savings mobilizatin is equally important compared to loan when designing and implementing housing programs for the poor. Microfinance institutions (MFI) can play a role in this. MFIs can also act as collection agent of PagIBIG contributions as well as loan payments to it. The government should provide more funds to address the housing backlog.
People’s Plan: Concept and Process
The statistics of the housing problem of the country was discussed during the session. There is a total of 1.5 million informal settler families in the country and 500,000 of them reside in NCR. There is a substantial proportion of these families who do not want to transfer to houses built for them by the government.
The People’s Plan presents the opposition of the sector towards NHA’s resettlement sites due to lack of access to water, power and jobs. The People’s Plan approach in building housing sites prioritizes the concerns of the people, specifically those of who were relocated.
ALPAS Experience
The Aniban ng Lehitimong Paninirahan ng Ligtas sa Sakuna HOAI (ALPAS) Phase 1 started around 2015. The off-site relocation served as the new home of 546 families living along Marilao River, Bagong Silang River and Amparo Creek of Caloocan City.
ALPAS is a livinge example of a People’s plan where developers, government and community members work together to build high-quality, affordable and disaster resilient housing.
The location of the project is in Tierra Benita, Bo. Panaklayan Munoz, San Jose Del Monte City. It was spearheaded by GBC Construction. The total project cost of the construction is Php 245,699,999.32.
Solar Community Project
Sinag Homes is a project developed by Sun Asia Energy. It promotes a reliable source of electricity that comes at a reasonable price. A prepaid system is being used by the homeowners to match their capacity to pay. It also comes with a tracker that allows them to track their electricity usage.
Sinag Homes was developed in the ALPAS Project in San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan. There are 25 buildings with 21 units in each building that are provided with Grid-tiled Roof Mounted PV System.
Financing through Pag-IBIG
The Pag-IBIG fund was created for two mandates: provident savings and home financing. The fund coming from the provident savings is used as the fund for home financing. By the time a person retires, there is a guaranteed return of contributions.
A Pag-IBIG member can get a housing loan starting from Php 100,000 up to Php 6,000,000 depending on the value of his/her land. The Pag-IBIG housing loan has an interest rate of 5.5% on its first year. As of 2017, the estimated number of its members is 17.65 million.
Support to Socialized Housing through the CDF of Cooperatives
Benjie Oliva of Cooperative Development Authority remarked that the agency focused more on the regulation of policies concerning the cooperatives. He also shared that the funds for the cooperatives are scattered.
Mr. Oliva also stated that out of the 2.0 trillion-peso budget for 2017, 500 billion pesos was not spent. He also argued that if the Philippine government has allocated funds to SHFC, DA, DOLE, and CDA, socialized housing sites would have been prioritized. He also added that the assistance to informal settler families should be sustained.
Socialized Housing by Large Developers (Ayala Land)
Bella Vita does its business through selling directly their constructed houses to the buyers. Their buyers are mostly married couples. More than half of them buy a house to serve as their primary homes. About 90% of the buyers get financial assistance from Pag-IBIG.
Under RA 10884, CMP becomes a way for Ayala Land to participate in housing projects. Also, Ayala Land wants to know how a group loan works. According to them, if there are identified beneficiaries of the houses, developers would be more willing to work with the cooperatives.
Compliance to the Housing Act
The primary responsibility for providing housing to the citizens is lodged to the LGUs. Under Section 20 of RA 7279, the LGUs should make sure that when it builds socialized housing sites, there should be basic services and these should be near livelihood components. HLURB, however, cannot monitor the LGU’s activity under the local government code.
Since LGUs sometimes become sources of graft, the private sector has been encouraged by HLURB to participate in the responsibility of the government to provide housing. The main concern of HLURB is to ensure that their standards are followed by private developers.
