(Re)thinking housing provision by local governments for Informal Settler Families in Metro Cebu, Philippines
Introduction:
he Philippines contains 7,107 islands where 5.4% of the urban population of about 2.2 million people live in informal settlements or housing inadequacies due to rapid urbanization. Responding to the housing demands, the Philippine government launched programmes focusing on public housing in the 1970s, slum upgrading and joint ventures in the 1980s, security of tenure, and privatized housing in the 1990s and promoted a participatory approach by decentralization.
However, governments feel it challenging to produce affordable housing projects with private sector in the enabling market. Whilst the central government made most housing initiatives, LGUs struggle to deliver affordable housing to the urban poor because of the complexity of land use regulations and overlap with Key Shelter Agencies (KSAs) schemes. At the grassroots level, some organizations such as Philippines Homeless People’s Federation, Inc. (HPFPI), promote community-centre development for slum upgrading. The HPFPI’s branch office is located in Mandaue City in Metro Cebu.
Social Justice and Housing Provision:
Globalization and neoliberalism influenced policies and plans and generated enabling markets and more inequalities. Globalization is described as an ideological construction and a convenient myth that helps to justify and legitimize the neo-liberal global project. It encourages the state to open the domestic market to other countries by promoting privatization and deregulation, therefore, articulates the flows of capital, labor, commodities, and traveller. Globalization or global neoliberalism created inequality of wages. Neoliberalism has been defined as networks of policy ideologies, values, and rationalities that work together to achieve the capital’s hegemonic power in social-economic context.
A Method-based Planning Framework for Informal Settlement:
This section will introduce a method-based planning framework for informal settlement, although the private sector is absent from this framework. Abbott believes that the community is able to provide the best reflection of internal needs, whilst the local authority brings a broader perspective of the city to bear and develop a method-based planning framework for informal settlement upgrading. In this context, the objectives of upgrading should acknowledge the recognition of precarious physical and social conditions, the insufficient opportunities for asset retention and growth, perceptions of poverty, and vulnerability with the compromised use of space.
Housing Provision for ISFs and Low-income People:
The rapid population growth, urbanization, and rural-urban migration put pressure on essential service provision, including shelter. The Philippines’ total housing need remains a high number at around 6.80 million units for the period 2017 to 2022, based on a housing backlog of 2.02 million as of December 2016. To increase the housing stock for low-income sectors, the National Shelter Programme was launched including CMP, financing and security of tenure.
Conclusion:
Taking the unprecedented moments as reading and widening cracks, local government can consider a housing right as a human right and begin accumulating support for housing provision to the urban poor. Slums dwellers are vulnerable to contagious viruses due to inadequate housing and services and lack of job opportunities, as the COVID-19 crisis demonstrates, especially in the Global South. In the Philippines’ Constitution, social justice is indicated and interpreted into the land regulations and housing provision programmes. However, distribution, recognition and participation were not reflected in the initiatives, which ultimately expanded inequality.
Following the assumption that the poor know best how to live in poverty, they invented community-centre development for realizing the right to adequate housing and access to services in collaboration with grassroots organizations. Whilst grassroots organizations have already played the role accorded to the local government in the analytical framework, they cannot legalize the process or particular situations and need government assistance.
ALSO READ: Unlocking Housing Finance for People on Low Incomes to Deliver Affordable Homes at Scale