A House leader has underscored the importance of empowering informal settlers by making them active partners of the government in the planning and management of their own resettlement.

House Committee on Accounts Chairperson and Tingog Party-list Rep. Yedda Romualdez said that doing so ensures that these plans thereon reflect and uphold the informal settlers' shelter needs and aspirations.

Romualdez is the principal author of House Bill (HB) No.5 or the proposed On-Site, In-City, Near City Local Government Resettlement Program. The measure was approved on third and final reading during plenary session last Nov. 14.

It aims to improve the plight of informal settlements from being displaced to areas of abject poverty, social exclusion, unsafe housing, and underdevelopment into communities with enhanced physical living conditions and improved quality of life that are fully integrated into a local government unit's (LGUs) physical and socioeconomic fabric and urban governance systems.

Romualdez is the wife of House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

In a separate interview, Tingog Party-list's second nominee in the House, Rep. Jude Acidre reiterated that an in-city or at least near city resettlement is key in addressing the country’s urban poor woes.

“While residents may have better shelter and security, they nevertheless lose mobility and access to income and livelihood and social services," he noted.

For years, socialized housing has been one of the solutions to address the chronic housing problem in the country. However, the housing and resettlement policy is primarily off-site relocation.

The government builds houses for informal settler families in areas outside Metro Manila or in rural areas, where there is lack of employment, sustainable livelihood, and social services. Thus, they often tend to return to the Metro for employment and other services.