Members of anti demolition network camp out at NHA vs collusion between the agency and big corporations, privatization of housing services

PRESS RELEASE l 24 OCTOBER 2011
ALYANSA KONTRA DEMOLISYON
REFERENCE: Carlito Badion, AKD Lead Convenor (09393873736)

QUEZON CITY, Philippines—After some urban poor groups from the National Government Center (NGC) areas trooped to Cityhall this morning to protest against the massive demolition of urban poor communities in the city, another group of urban poor under Concerned Organizations against Tranfer, Lay-off, Demolition and Privatization for the Quezon City Central Business District (CONTRACBD) stage a similar protest this afternoon. They condemn the massive demolition of homes in the North and East Triangle areas for the planned central business District.

According their spokesperson, Santi Dasmarinas, some 24,000 urban poor families will be thrown to far-flung relocation sites that lack the livelihood sources for the relocatees to survive. Thousands of government and hospital workers shall be dislodged from their work as the implementation of PhP22B-worth QCCBD kicks in. “The urban poor has no place in the development plan of the Aquino administration, as bad as treating them as garbage and impendent to development. On the 27th of October, residents of Sitio San Roque in North Triangle are once again facing a threat of eviction as the 60-day extension given by the NHA and the QC LGU expires.

NHA camp out
To condemn the futility of the Aquino administration in addressing the housing needs of its people, several groups of urban poor camp out at the gate of the NHA. The camp out is led by Alyansa Kontra Demolisyon and it aims to challenge the agency to act on the massive demolition implemented by different LGUs and even sometimes by the NHA itself, as in the case of San Roque where NHA stands as the land claimant.

Some 560,000 families are due to be evicted from their communities in the months and years to come. “While it is clear that President Aquino signed a covenant with the urban poor that there will never be any case of demolition unless there is a comprehensive relocation program for the victims, the NHA is speeding up the eviction of residents to cater the needs of the low-cost housing firms. Instead of catering the housing heeds of the urban poor, NHA has acted as broker of low-cost housing contracts between the government and big housing firms who serve as the ‘private sector’ based on the PPP Program.

'Slum house' at the gate of NHA
Protesters built a ‘slum house’ at the gate of the agency to sybolize the futility of the NHA in adressing the housing needs of the people. Slum material such as tin roof and tires were written with calls against demolition and privatization of housing services.

PPP Center
Tomorrow the protesters will march from the NHA to the Public-Private Partneship Center in EDSA to throw mud at the said agency. According to Badion, the said agency should be dismantled for it will not only bury the already suffering Filipinos into bigger debt, but also for the fact that only foreign and big local corporations will benefit from these PPP projects. PPP disregards too, the rights of thousands of urban poor Filipinos for a decent housing program. ###