Crafted to curb the country’s housing woes, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s Pambansang Pabahay para sa Pilipino Housing (4PH) Program is a significant push to the Philippines’ overall goals on sustainable development, according to the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD).
DHSUD Secretary Jose Rizalino Acuzar cited the relevance of the 4PH Program, particularly on maintaining economic growth and creating more resilient jobs, as targeted in the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028.
“As we pursue the mission to build and dispense one million housing units per year, we are also espousing township development that will ensure sustainable co-existence of all elements and players in a housing community,” he said.
The PDP 2023-2028 explicitly states the establishment of livable communities as among its key transformation strategies under the social and urban development sector, “by upgrading and planning human settlements such that an integrated use of space will bring people closer to work, recreation and transit options.”
The 4PH Program pursues innovative strategies to maximize the use of land resources, particularly the vacant, idle, blighted and underutilized government and private-owned lands for housing and mixed-use development.
Its targets to optimize land utilization, especially in highly urbanized and component cities through prioritizing vertical housing and adopting township development models.
“We give weight to the fact that the country’s population growth remains as one of the fastest in Asia, yet our spatial legroom remains constant. It literally maintains its original size and shape, prodding us to strategize on its use while protecting everything that inhabits it,” Acuzar said.
Statistics from local housing boards indicate approximately 3.7 million ISFs in the country, half a million of whom are in Metro Manila.
The 4PH Program focuses on developing low, mid to high-rise projects near the sources of livelihood of target beneficiaries. Indisputably, most of these areas are found in the metropolis or in the center of urban areas where informal settler families persistently thrive.
“The DHSUD, in partnership with LGUs, envisions to transform informal settlements and blighted areas into better residential developments with reasonable open spaces. In aid of this, we must clean and rehabilitate waterways and esteros into parks and walkways, and promote onsite or near-site in-city housing,” the housing chief noted.
“All these are tactically situated in or near city centers to ensure access to mass public transportation systems such as rail, bus rapid transit, intermodal passenger terminals and bus interchanges,” he said.