Routes
Treñas' squatterless Iloilo City?
I had a talk with United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat) consultant Ma. Adelaida Antonette Mamonong (I call her Adelaide) last Feb 9. Adelaide is a community development specialist. She was resource person in a workshop on Local Shelter Plan Formulation Training for the Local Government of Iloilo City.
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It is encouraging to know that Mayor Jerry Treñas has not set aside his plan for a squatterless Iloilo City. “Squatterless” sounds ambitious, but housing is a priority issue of a highly urbanized city, which is further developing rapidly.
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When UN Habitat High Commissioner Farouk Tebhal was here three years ago, I also had a one-on-one talk with the amiable Algerian as I would refer to him. Tebhal pointed out the Philippines as an area of high concern together with India and South Africa.
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In 2004, Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared the military lots on Veteran’s Village as on-site development housing areas. I had prior knowledge on that and was one of the first to know that the areas were to be declared as such because I was then the translator of the speeches of the president.
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The recent workshop of the UN Habitat was the first in a series of four with the overall development objective that is “to ensure the availability of expertise on local shelter planning.” After the completion of the workshop, stakeholders will be expected to be capacitated to prepare the local shelter plan for Iloilo City.
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Notable is the multipartite paradigm in development common in most Treñas projects. Planning should not be a monopoly of the technical people of LGUs. The LGU of Iloilo City was correct in doing this. I don’t want to give praise where none is due.
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The Iloilo City urban poor through the PO Iloilo City Urban Poor Federation led by Benfred Tacuyan sector was there. The NGO Homeless People’s Federation of the Philippines (HPFP was there. Also there, were the National Housing Authority (NHA), the Philippine Commission on the Urban Poor (PCUP), and the realtor’s group CREBA. The national government, local government, the NGOs, POs and the private sector were there. That makes it cross-sectoral, hence representative. I would prefer calling it multipartite as my wife Agnes who is also a development worker and co-author of the Ford Foundation and UP Center for Women Studies book “Gender and Population and Development” would also prefer to call it.
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I have never heard of an Iloilo City leader who has the boldness to say “squatterless Iloilo City” except Treñas. I have anticipations that Treñas may need more time to implement this. But development starts with a commitment and his commitment has been made public through the “squatterless Iloilo City” vision and declaration. I will look forward to this.
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The city's urban poor office, the ICUPAO, is at the helm of the local shelter initiative. The urban poor office has a delimited mandate. It was created to handle urban poor issues, not housing primarily. But to be objective and fair I must say that since Mr. Rony Firmeza assumed the chairmanship of the ICUPAO, no violent dismantling and resettlement has ever been heard. The administration before Firmeza was a mess of undiplomatic management and a rowdiness of promises. I would say that the administration before Treñas did not really have that commitment for the urban poor as seen in its loud confrontational but never effectual way.
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By the time, the workshop on shelter planning will have been completed, we can expect that stakeholders themselves will be the ones to lead the formulation and implementation of the plan. Again, I will look forward to that.