The Deaprtment of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) should identify all idle lands in the country’s urban centers that can host on-site, in-city and near-city resettlement and community development.
Senator Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, made the call, echoing President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s proposed executive order that seeks to reserve idle government lands for housing projects.
The President earlier disclosed his vision of building around one million housing units per year or about six million houses by the end of his term.
During the hearing of the Senate Committee on Urban Planning, Housing and Resettlement, which he chairs, Ejercito pointed out there are many idle lands in Metro Manila which the government can redevelop.
“Dito sa Metro Manila, magugulat tayo na there are thousands of hectares (of idle land). Ayun nga lang, (Here in Metro Manila, you’ll be surprised there are thousands of hectares of idle land. However) some are inhabited by informal settler families,” Ejercito said during the hearing.
“Pero ang pwede nating gawin doon, yung mga (We can do that there for the) informal settler communities, we can redevelop it,” he said.
Ejercito said the DHSUD should prioritize the identification of idle lands in the country’s three most populous metropolitan areas—Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and Metro Davao.
The national government should avoid using agricultural lands for its housing projects: “Ayaw na nating mabawasan ang ating mga productive lands (We don’t want the number of our productive lands to be reduced),” Ejercito said.
During the hearing, Housing Undersecretary Avelino Tolentino III said the agency is still in the process of identifying idle lands from the 16,000 hectares of government land listed in their registry.
Tolentino also said the DHSUD has also tapped the assistance of Bacolod Mayor Alfredo “Albee” Benitez, who was recently elected as the national chairperson of the League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP), to convince other local chief executives in assisting the government in identifying idle state-owned lands.
Also during the hearing, Sen. Nancy Binay asked the DHSUD to submit to the Senate panel a list or database of beneficiaries of state housing programs which, she said, is one way of preventing professional squatting syndicates.
Binay said that during the time of her father, then Vice President Jejomar Binay, as chairperson of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), they had a list of names of people who benefitted from housing projects.
Tolentino replied saying shelter agencies have an Alpha list of beneficiaries but are having a hard time connecting their lists with the local government units (LGUs).
He also said such activity would require a lot of work, personnel and lots of resources to fully digitize the lists.