• 1983 - Established by Chairperson of Kadamay San Roque Estrelieta Bagasbas, called “Ka Inday.”  The lot used to be grasslands but was used as a “salvage” dump during the time of Martial Law. The grasslands were cleared by Ka Inday’s family and other immigrants to plant and sell vegetables. 

• 1986 - San Roque had been part of the movement against the Marcos Regime. Members joined mass protests as recalled by Ka Inday.

• 2008 - Ayala Land Inc. acquired the contract from the public bidding conducted by NHA. The goal of this venture was to turn the area into a commercial business district.

• 2009 - Ayala Land Inc. publicized its signing of joint venture agreement with NHA to develop the 29.1-hectare property as a “priming project of the government and the private sector."

• 2010 - A part of Sitio San Roque was demolished to make way for a 340-hectare project by Ayala Land. The urban poor group Kadamay was against this move since it would displace over 6,000 families. NHA gave Sitio San Roque residents 7 days to relocate to an alternative housing area in Rizal. The residents stayed in protest and claimed that the new area lacked electricity and water and had high transportation costs.

• 2013-2014 - Demolitions resumed; The last recorded wave of deployed police numbered 700 officers. This resulted in 500 homes destroyed, leaving 200 families homeless. 

Currently, President Rodrigo Duterte’s Build Build Build program has been aggressive in evicting informal settlers including Sitio San Roque. Cash has also been offered to the residents who self-demolish their homes. 

In response, Kadamay has created an alternative community development plan (CDP) pursuant to the core provisions of Cory Aquino’s Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992. The plan includes, among other things, affordable mass housing and accessibility to basic social services. The plan was submitted to Mayor Joy Belmonte last December 2019, but was put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

• In September 2020, residents of San Roque celebrated the 10th anniversary of their continued fight against the demolition of the community.

Community Details

1. Food security - Food security is addressed through the buying of equipment and payment of water bills that Sitio San Roque residents use regularly.

2. Tanimang Bayan - The residents now have a more convenient way of farming by using the hose that will be provided and they can also save money through the money donated for the water bill.

1. Contact with the community - Visit the community more often since pandemic restrictions are not as strict anymore, and allocate more time to talk to residents. This was often not done due to pandemic restrictions, so in the future, if the pandemic further weakens, future students may visit the community more frequently.

2. Internal communications - Tasks were not streamlined at times due to communications being between heads only, sometimes not everyone was aware of tasks. A solution is to be sure to find a common platform where everyone is active and make sure to disseminate meeting minutes to the rest of the group frequently (if the group is large like ours was)

3. Shopee orders - Only one member could continuously package the Shopee orders because of logistic issues (not everyone could participate because everyone was working from home), it would have been more difficult to have several headquarters bc it would induce more shipping costs. Next time, the succeeding group should establish a headquarters that members can come and go from in order to be able to efficiently pack orders. 

1. Collaboration with the community on urban gardening - Not all of us had the knowledge on urban gardening, which is something we intended to promote through selling Plant Starter Kits. By collaborating with the people directly involved with the community garden, we could share more ideas not just between the group but also to the public.

2. Set headquarters for members - Not all students could go to Pisay to prepare Shopee orders, as it may have been too far from one's house or too inconvenient to go to. By having set headquarters for members, students will be able to prepare orders without hassle which increases packing speed and the rate orders are sent out to buyers.

3. More streamlined communications platform - An ability to talk to all members of the group should be of utmost priority, as the sheer numbers of the group mean that tasks are able to be done exceedingly quickly, but coordinating the effort is the hardest part. A Google Sheet with efficiently organized tasks could be implemented at all parts of the project, compared to what was done in our project where it was only implemented in the implementation phase.