To provide decent homes to thousands of informal settlers in Manila, Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada has partnered with the National Housing Authority to discuss measures to help those living in danger zones.
Following an initial meeting, Estrada said NHA general manager Marcelino Escalada has promised to extend housing assistance to informal settler families located along the railroad tracks, canals, rivers, and creeks and in garbage dumps.
“They’re looking at aiding informal settler families and they promised to help Manila,” Estrada said.
While no concrete plans have been finalized yet, Estrada said he and Escalada have discussed certain steps to be taken to “rescue” the hundreds of thousands of ISFs that live perilously along the banks of the creeks and other identified high-risk areas.
“Manila is a capital city and yet we have the most number of informal settlers,” the mayor lamented. “It is our desire to come to the aid of those families living in such danger zones. After all, everyone has the right to adequate and safe housing and shelter.”
“Even pet dogs are sheltered when it’s sunny or it’s raining, what more for people?” Estrada quipped.
He also reassured settlers in Manila that his administration strictly adheres to the “no relocation, no demolition” policy of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Since 2013 when he was elected mayor of Manila, Estrada has relocated 7,403 ISFs from esteros and other danger zones, 500 of them in city-managed properties in Bulacan, Cavite, and Laguna.
He has also awarded 257 families their own lots under the city government’s “Land for the Landless” program, while an initial batch of 32 families in the impoverished Baseco Compound in Tondo now have their own houses and lots at a 3.5-hectare portion of the P44.5-million project in Sitio Dubai.
Estrada said more than half of Metro Manila’s informal settlers are in Manila. According to official statistics, at least 2.8 million informal settlers or 556,526 families are living in Metro Manila as of 2010.
Of this number, 104,000 families are occupying areas identified by the Department of the Interior and Local Government as danger zones, such as railroad tracks, garbage dumps, canals, rivers and creeks.
In Manila, ISFs are concentrated in 107 barangays that are traversed by big waterways such as Pasig River, San Juan River, Estero de Maypajo, and Estero de Sunog Apog.