[After the violent demolition of urban poor communities today] ‘Urban poor, hopeless under Aquino’--Kadamay

PRESS RELEASE (28 November 2011)
KALIPUNAN NG DAMAYANG MAHIHIRAP
Reference: Gloria Arellano, Kadamay national secretary-general (09213927457)

Quezon City, Philippines—“The government won’t stop until it buries the urban poor into the grave.” This is the statement of the Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap, as the local government unit of Quezon City hired demolition teams to hunt dowm ‘illegal settlers’ in an urban poor community along BIR road.

Some of the residents who fight head-to-head against demolition teams this morning are considered ‘illegal’ settlers by the National Housing Authority. These ‘illegal’ settlers, according to local authorities, have already received relocation package in Montalba, but have returned to their old communities. Technically, they are those considered by the government as ‘professional squatters.’

Many of these professional squatters have gone back to their old community mainly because of economic reasons. “There is no job in the relocation. If they work in the cities, the measly wage will not suffice the transportation cost plus their family’s basic needs. They come back to the cities because they found out they cannot let their families die from hunger in a place that the government promised to be a better community,” Gloria Arellano explains.

“If the government persists on hunting down the so called ‘professional squatters’ and demolishing their homes, the government must be ready for a deadly match as seen along BIR road this morning. For the ‘professional squatters,’ it would be a battle for survival,” Arellano warns.

“It is such a shame that the government, behind its dole-out program for the poor, remains to be as the primary aggressor of human rights of the urban poor,” Arellano says. “That it acts as protector of the interest of foreign and local businessmen whose establishments displace the urban poor from their land in the cities, the plight of the urban poor remains hopeless under the Aquino administration.”

According to Kadamay, unless the government revises the orientation of its housing program for the poor, from being profit-driven into a service oriented one, relocatees will continue to come back to their old communities in the cities. Arellano adds that instead of hunting down ‘professional squatters’ and treating them as criminals, the government must address the reason why they come back to the cities.###