The chairman of the House committee on housing and urban development on Tuesday warned of a possible collapse of the government’s housing program following the forceful takeover of Kadamay members of several housing units in Bulacan.
Negros Occidental Rep. Alfredo Benitez, the panel chairman, said the urban poor group’s arbitrary takeover of some 5,000 government-built housing units in Pandi and San Jose del Monte Bulacan last month suffered “a further 50 percent reduction” in collection rate of the National Housing Authority.
“The then only 30 percent collection of the NHA now becomes 15 percent because of the Kadamay incident,” said Benitez, who led other congressmen who conducted an ocular inspection of the housing units.
Because of the weak collection rate of the NHA, the housing program of the government might collapse,” Benitez said.
Benitez said that the only way to prevent the collapse of the government housing program would be through a “forceful eviction program.”
Benitez added that the illegal takeover of the Kadamay members in the housing units in Bulacan would not be permanent.
Benitez has filed House Resolution 11 that seeks to authorize the NHA to award unoccupied and unawarded housing units of uniformed police and military personnel to other qualified beneficiaries.
Benitez said Republic Act 10352 and RA 10633 or the 2013 and the 2014 General Appropriations Act appropriated P5.6 billion and P5.45 billion, respectively for the Armed Forces, Philippine National Police, Bureau of Fire Protection, Bureau of Corrections housing program.
“Years after the implementation, several housing units constructed under the AFP/ PNP Housing Project are still unoccupied as verified by the Commission on Audit Report, which reported that the occupancy rate of the completed housing units for said program is at mere 8.09 percent,” Benitez said.
He said the same CoA report also stated that the non-use by the intended beneficiaries of the housing units under the said housing project resulted to loss of revenues on the part of the government, unnecessary exposure of the units to unfavorable weather condition and non-attainment of the objective of the program.
“The NHA may instead identiy alternative beneficiaries and beneficiary-specific sites such as in the case of public school teachers living within the area, employees in the local government concerned where the housing units are constructed. Barangay employees and functionaries and informal settlers who could all benefit from the unoccupied housing units,” Benitez said in his resolution.