PRESS RELEASE (28 November 2011)
KALIPUNAN NG DAMAYANG MAHIHIRAP
Reference: Gloria Arellano, Kadamay national secretary-general (09213927457)
Quezon City, Philippines—An urban poor group calls on the national government to stop its ‘demolition rampage of urban poor communities’ referring to gross human rights violation committed by the administration on its first year alone.
“There is no significant change on the government’s treatment of the urban poor, only that it gets worse during the Aquino administration,” said Gloria Arellano, Kadamay national secretary-general after two communities are facing demolition team from different parts of Quezon City.
Residents from Sitio Looban are reported to be in head-to-head with the dispersal team that the QC LGU sent to demolish the homes of urban poor settlers. Injuries and illegal arrests have been reported on the part of the residents. Residents were given until yesterday, Nov 27, by the Novaliches District Center administrator Taddy Palma to vacate their homes. The demolition today will affect not more than 12 families of the more than 300 families that are living at the planned site of Bistek Ville II, a housing program of the local government.
Meanwhile, residents along BIR road in the East Triangle of QC are trying to fend off demolition forces and police elements. Supports from nearby communities such San Roque in North Triangle and NIA community help resist demolition of homes.
A negotiation with the office of City Mayor on the road widening of BIR road has ended in a deadlock. Residents believe that the real issue behind the demolition of their homes is the implementation of QCCBD. BIR community like the rest of communities in the North and East Triangle has been razed by big fires recently. The latest to experience is the community along NIA. Instead of offering food, NHA have handed out notice to fire victims instructing them take the relocation program in Montalban.
Arellano cites Aquino’s penchant for businesses and infrastructure projects under his Public-Private Partnership Program to be behind the so called ‘demolition rampage of urban poor communities. “It has not happen so often in the past that two or three demolition of urban poor communities occur at the same time,” Arellano said citing today’s possible demolition in three separate communities in Quezon City. “It is an outright declaration of an all-out-war against urban poor settlers,” she added.
Entrenched into deep poverty due to massive unemployment and soaring prices of basic commodities, Arellano said “the urban poor have experienced the most traumatic human right condition under the Aquino regime. Tens of thousands have become homeless, if not relocated into fatal relocation sites, in a short span time during the Aquino administration.”
“The Aquino administration must stop boasting of its dole-out program for the poor just to show that it feels their suffering and agony, while it continues to implements massive demolition of urban poor communities that worsen the abject condition of the poor.”
“If it cares at all, it must refrain from acting as the antagonist, and declare an indefinite nationwide moratorium on demolition. He must investigate the killing and the countless human right violation committed against the urban poor nationwide related to its implementation of development programs,” Arellano adds.
An anti-demolition alliance also expressed its disgust of the Aquino regimes’ demolition rampage. “The urban poor have suffered long enough. Each time a house in an urban poor community is torn down, and a family becomes homeless, it seems nothing is wrong because it is the government who leads the misconduct. Aquino’s penchant for big businesses at the expense of the thousands of hapless urban poor is truly unbearable. It has to be stopped,” Badion ends. ###
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