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THE Fernando wrecking machine plows inexorably.
Hardly a week passes by when we do not hear about the MMDA
descending on a slum and clearing the area. Chairman Bayani Fernando
has a timetable: clear Metro Manila of squatters by 2010 at the
earliest, or in 15 years on a longer term.
The principal tasks of the
Metropolitan Manila Development Authority are to humanize traffic
flow, tame recurring floods and to collect and process public trash
as efficiently as possible. A new responsibility is to help clean up
the Pasig River and the network of canals in the national capital
region.
The squatters, and there are
thousands in Metro Manila, have frustrated much of the MMDA’s
goals. They are found all over the place: by the riverbanks, along
the walls of Manila Bay, under and over bridges, in public parks and
along railroad tracks.
Many have organized themselves
into slums that have withstood pressures from city hall and the
rightful landowners. The more durable slums have survived for many
decades in the 17 towns and cities. The MMDA estimates at least
85,000 squatter families live in the greater Manila area.
The squatters have congregated in
Metro Manila because of the pull of the city, poverty in the
hometown, because of the government’s failure to develop the
regions and its hollow policy on land and home ownership.
Politicians have tolerated slums because the squatters constitute a
big voting precinct.
The government has begun to
realize that squatting must be stopped and the “informal
settlers” be relocated elsewhere where they could own a home, a
piece of land and have better access to jobs and the basic amenities
of life. Slum clearing has not been easy but the interlopers
gradually gave way. The task of giving them a new break is another
matter.
The task of uprooting slums has
become urgent. The government sees many reasons for this activity. A
primary one is that the squatters are living on public and private
land they do not own. Squatting has become a big public issue, a big
concern to the national and local governments and an interminable
war over property rights between owners and the intruders that
sometimes end in violence.
Squatter families and big
factories have become the principal polluters of Pasig River and
Manila Bay. Public health and public safety are a big issue in slums
and in the communities surrounding them. Environmental health is at
stake. How do you promote tourism with these urban eyesores, unless
the government (or the private sector) wishes to engage in poverty
tourism?
All together now
OTHER urgent reasons explain the
relentless slum clearance program. The north and south rail systems
the government (and the Chinese) is building cannot proceed without
relocating the thousands who live by the railroad tracks. They live
dangerously close to the tracks, impeding rail traffic, causing
misery for passengers and wreaking countless accidents.
Metro Manila mayors have begun to
realize their development plans cannot prosper with the slums
thriving in their cities. Mayor Alfredo Lim of Manila, for one,
wants to transfer slums out of Intramuros to give way to his
business district in the Port Area and to protect the historical and
cultural treasures in the old Walled City.
Two others, Mayor Feliciano
Belmonte of Quezon City and Mayor Joseph Victor Ejercito of San
Juan, are giving full support to an interagency committee created by
President Arroyo to speed up the eviction and relocation of the
homeless. These gentlemen, along with the MMDA chairman, inspected
recently the nine-kilometer San Juan River to reassure the residents
of an orderly clearance and a new home in Laguna where they can live
in dignity.
The interagency committee on
relocation enlists the membership of local governments,
nongovernment organizations, the Church, the National Housing
Authority and several national agencies dealing with land and
housing issues.
Slum clearance and rebuilding
lives has become a priority of the Arroyo government, hence the 2010
deadline—the sunset year of the administration—has been set. The
President envisions a safer and more orderly Metro Manila and new,
progressive communities in southern Luzon for the displaced
families.
From one slum to another
A COMMON complaint among the
Filipinos who have resettled—under the current and past
administrations—is that they were transferred from one slum to
another or, in the more descriptive phrase of a disillusioned
citizen, “from one sty to another.”
To a man, the squatters who were
promised a new life said their new neighborhood was not any better
from the old one. They have difficulty getting jobs, sending their
children to school or having access to health care and basic public
services.
Many complained about scarcities
in water and power, bad roads and poor public transportation. The
nearest job is “ten cigarettes” away. Building a small business
is difficult. They have carried their misery from their old
community to the new one.
Vice President Noli de Castro,
whose responsibility is to give the former squatters a decent life,
said his agency his coping. Chairman Fernando was quoted as saying
it’s not his business to find them new homes and jobs. No wonder
many of the former squatters are selling their homes and moving out.
The program needs a review.
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