Responding to the declaration of a housing crisis in the country, House of Representatives officials have vowed to push for the passage of 18 legislative proposals that would address the problem.
San Jose Del Monte City Rep. Florida Robes, vice chairperson of the House Committee on Housing and Urban Development, said the House panel will fasttrack passage of proposals that would address the 6.7 million housing backlog in the country.
Robes gave this assurance during the housing summit held at the SJDM Convention Center in Bulacan on Wednesday, March 10.
Speaker Lord Allan Velasco, Secretary Eduardo del Rosario of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; General Manager Marcelino Escalada of the National Housing Authority and Rep. Francisco Benitez, chairman of the housing and urban development panel attended the summit.
In his speech, Velasco said the Lower House is committed to help ease the housing backlog, pointing out that it is for this reason that the chamber passed House Bill 8248 proposing to institutionalize on-site, in-city and near-ity resettlement program that would uphold the urban poor’s right to the city under a people’s plan.
Robes, who headed the Technical Working Group on the housing crisis resolution, said she had been tasked to accordingly ensure its implementation through close coordination with the DHSUD and the NHA.
“This is an ambitious goal I know because it is not easy especially now that we have the pandemic but we have housing officials who are passionate about their work and are very much willing to work together to fulfill their mandate of providing decent and affordable housing to all underserved Filipino families,” Robes said.
Earlier, the housing panel adopted a substitute resolution to HR 1458 declaring a housing crisis.
The committee listed 18 proposals that are necessary to ease the housing problem.
Benitez said his committee will act on the measure and coordinate closely with the DHSUD in the performance of its duties.
Robes said her committee will move to increase the budget for socialized housing to at least P50 billion starting next year and further adjust the allocation for every year thereafter to enable the government to jumpstart addressing the issue. She pointed out that historically, the government allocates very limited funding for housing with spending on housing averaging to only 0.74 percent of the national budget from 2010 to 2021.
As a result, from July 2016 to June 2020, the government and the private sector constructed only 777,879 housing units. Robes said many of the housing backlogs may be addressed at the local government level through the help of the private sector.
“A lot of it is through political will which is the reason why we listed at least 18 proposals to maximize our efforts to solve the backlog,” she said.
One such proposal under the approved HR is streamlining the application for socialized housing and mandating the DHSUD to undertake an inventory of idle government lands and fast-track their development and disposition for socialized housing in partnership with the private sector.