President Rodrigo Duterte has signed into law a bill seeking to consolidate two housing agencies into a new Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development to ensure “adequate, sustainable and affordable” homes for underprivileged and homeless Filipinos.
He approved the new law, Republic Act 11201, on Feb. 14, a copy of which was released by Malacañang on Tuesday.
Duterte also enacted a bill institutionalizing a National Integrated Cancer Control Program to make the treatment of cancer “more equitable and affordable” for the public.
Republic Act 11215, signed by Duterte on Feb. 14, 2019, seeks to “adopt an integrated and comprehensive approach to health development, which includes the strengthening of integrative, multidisciplinary, patient and family-centered career control policies, programs, systems, interventions and services at all levels of the existing health care delivery system.”
• President Rodrigo Duterte has signed a bill into law establishing a Career Guidance and Counseling Program for all public and private Secondary Schools to ensure the “total development” of the Filipino youth.
Duterte signed Republic Act 11206, or the “Secondary School Career Guidance and Counseling Act,” on Feb. 14, 2019, but the Palace released the document only on Tuesday.
The new housing law ordered the consolidation of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board to create the new department.
The new department will act as the “primary national government entity responsible for the management of housing, human settlement, and urban development.
The department will have a secretary, three undersecretaries and assistant secretaries each, and the Bureaus of Environmental, Land Use, and Urban Planning and Development; Housing and Real Estate Development Regulation, and Homeowners Association and Community Development.
The department will also have administrative supervision over the National Housing Authority, National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation, Home Development Mutual Fund and Social Housing Finance Corporation.
The law also orders the reconstitution of the HLURB to create the Human Settlements Adjudication Commission. The HSAC will be composed of five commissioners who will be responsible for the administration and operations of the Commission.
The National Human Settlements Board will also be established to address housing policies and plans, as well as the transfer of the adjudicatory function of the HLURB to the HSAC. The board will be headed by the secretary of the department as it’s chairman, and will consist of members from the National Economic Development Authority and the departments of Finance, Public Works and Highways and Interior and Local Government, and the head of each attached agency of the Department.
In 2018, government data revealed the need for more than two-million housing units. The figure was expected to increase to 6,571,387 by the end of Duterte’s term.
The law takes effect 15 days after its publication in the Official Gazette or in any newspaper of general circulation.