URBAN POVERTY AND HOUSING
Cities continue to be the battleground in the country’s fight against COVID-19. The impacts of the pandemic have been especially detrimental to the urban poor, but the response of the government—periodic, disruptive lockdowns, inadequate contact tracing and testing, and meager emergency cash assistance—has not provided substantial relief to those unable to continue or find work, to access comprehensive medical care, and to feed their families. At a time when people are told to stay at home to slow the spread of the virus, the government allowed the resumption of eviction of informal settlers and demolition of their communities in the guise of keeping them out of harm’s way in so-called danger areas and helping the economy recover through infrastructure projects. A rental subsidy law, now making headway in the legislature, might help these families if enacted soon. Meanwhile, families in off-city resettlement projects might inadvertently be affected by the proposal to evict those who fail to pay their monthly amortization or do not reside in the housing project.
by Gerald M Nicolas
PHOTO: JIRE CARREON / LICAS NEWS
Urban informal settlers at greater risk as government lifts moratorium on eviction and demolition
Citing the easing of the quarantine restrictions in the first months of 2021 and the urgency of relocating informal settlers living in danger areas, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) lifted the postponement of all administrative demolition and eviction activities.
PHOTO: KAMPILAN FACEBOOK PAGE
LIGHTS
SHADOWS
Integral Development Based on Human Dignity and Solidarity
The national government has been admonishing the public to remain in their homes to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 yet its decision to lift the moratorium on eviction and demolition may lead (or has led) to homelessness and put unsheltered individuals at higher risk of contracting the virus.
In March 2021, the DILG lifted Memorandum Circular No. 2020-068, issued in April 2020, which directed local government units (LGUs) to “postpone all demolition and eviction activities and ensure that all homeless citizens within their respective jurisdictions are properly accommodated” during the period of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and state of national emergency. According to the DILG, Memorandum Circular No. 2021-031 intends to safeguard the safety of informal settler families (ISFs) living in danger areas and to prevent homeless families from occupying danger areas which the department noticed to have intensified since the pandemic started.
Even if the quarantine restrictions were gradually relaxed at the time of the issuance of the new memorandum, the number of COVID-19 cases in the country, especially in cities, remained high. Without a temporary halt to eviction and demolitions, thousands of ISFs will be rendered homeless and incapable of following health protocols. Eviction and demolition will increase the exposure to the virus of individuals with underlying health conditions and vulnerable older people. Neither consequence is in the interest of upholding the dignity of the human person amid the pandemic and economic crisis.
Universal Purpose of Earthly Goods and Private Property
Even while a moratorium on eviction and demolition was in effect, national government agencies and LGUs did not refrain from pushing urban informal settlers, already suffering from financial hardship because of the pandemic, into homelessness.
In Parañaque City, for example, at least 100 families lost their homes in January 2021 after a demolition was carried out to clear a government property earmarked for the C5 Southlink Project of the Department of Transportation (DOTr). The evicted families stayed at the barangay gymnasium but were eventually ordered to leave. While waiting for the government’s response to their appeal to be relocated in a housing project of the National Housing Authority (NHA), the families built tents and lived on sidewalks for five months until they were forced again to leave in June 2021. There were also unpublicized reports of court-ordered eviction of families from privately-owned lands.
Cities placed under lockdown without effective pandemic response
Following record high spikes in the number of COVID-19 infections in Metro Manila and surrounding urbanizing provinces (Rizal, Bulacan, Cavite, and Laguna), the National Government reverted to the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) status within the so-called “NCR Plus bubble” from March 29 to April 4, which was extended to April 11. From April 12 until May 14, the lockdown in the “NCR Plus bubble” was eased to a modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ), then shifted to general community quarantine (GCQ) “with heightened restrictions” from May 15 to June 15. From June 15 to 30, Metro Manila and Bulacan were placed under GCQ “with some restrictions”, while Rizal, Laguna, and Cavite were under GCQ “with heightened restrictions.” Tighter lockdown restrictions were also imposed in several cities in other regions, but these measures did not come with effective testing and contact tracing as well as cash aid for the most affected.
PHOTO: REUTERS
LIGHTS
SHADOWS
Integral Development Based on Human Dignity and Solidarity
Without an “aggressive” pandemic response, the reimposition of stricter community quarantine measures in the “NCR Plus bubble” in the second quarter of 2021 did not achieve the intended outcome of effectively containing COVID-19, hurting low-income and vulnerable urban families.
According to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), an estimated 252,000 individuals in the areas placed under the two-week ECQ had no work and 102,000 more individuals became poor. The lockdown—despite its consequent tradeoff—would have allowed the government to “buy time” to reduce the transmission of the virus by intensifying testing, contact tracing, isolation, treatment, and vaccination, but its performance in these essential elements of pandemic response fell short. Testing by mid-March was at 50,000-60,000 tests daily, lower than the ideal range of 120,000-150,000 tests per day, especially with a daily positivity rate (i.e., the share of COVID-19 tests that are positive) of more than 15% at the time of the new lockdown announcement. The government’s target contact tracing efficiency ratio is 1:37 (or 37 contacts traced per confirmed case) in urban areas which was later adjusted to 1:15, but in Metro Manila, the ratio was at 1:5 only (as of April 2021). In early June, Metro Manila experienced a two-week delay in the delivery of vaccines “due to logistical challenges”, slowing down the vaccination rate in the country’s most densely populated region.
Love of Preference for the Poor
The government’s supplemental financial aid for those in areas under ECQ from March 29 to April 4 covered only 80% of low-income individuals, leaving many poor families without any assistance that will compensate for the loss of income during lockdown.
According to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the government did not anticipate that a supplemental aid program would be needed in 2021. The cash aid, totaling to ₱22.9 billion, came from the leftover funds of the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act (Bayanihan 2), the government’s second pandemic stimulus package. This meant a cash assistance lower than what low-income families received in 2020. Each eligible beneficiary received a measly ₱1,000 worth of cash or in-kind aid, and only up to four family members can be registered as recipients. This meager cash aid, economists warned, “could force people to go out and look for work, defeating the purpose of a hard lockdown.” The sprout of makeshift “community pantries” in many places in the country, especially in urban areas, helped fill the gap in the government’s pandemic response.
Value of Human Work
The national government’s failure to respond appropriately to manage the COVID-19 health emergency and deal with its economic and social consequences continue to be reflected in the still high unemployment rates especially in growth centers such as Metro Manila.
The results of the April 2021 Labor Force Survey (LFS) showed a slight increase in the unemployment rate when economically important regions (“NCR Plus”, as coined by the administration) were placed under ECQ and MECQ. From 7.1% in March 2021, the unemployment rate in April 2021 jumped to 8.7%, about the same level as the rates in October 2020. NCR and Region IV-A or CALABARZON (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon) posted two-digit unemployment rates at 14.4% and 13.4%, respectively. Compared to the region’s unemployment rate in January 2021, NCR posted an 8.8-percent increase in April 2021. These figures would have justified the distribution of substantial cash assistance from the government.
Housing rights upheld and threatened in pending bills
In the first half of 2021, two bills, which if passed into law will impact the urban poor, were tackled in both chambers of Congress: the Rental Housing Subsidy Program Act and the National Housing Authority Act.
PHOTO: GERALD NICOLAS/ ICSI
LIGHTS
Integral Development Based on Human Dignity and Solidarity
The Senate Urban Planning, Housing, and Resettlement Committee approved in June 2021 the bill granting rental subsidies to urban informal settlers whose scheduled relocation to formal housing projects is delayed by calamities and other reasons. Its counterpart bill at the House of Representatives, House Bill No. 8736, was passed in March 2021. This bill was one of the priority legislative measures of President Duterte in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) in 2020.
If passed into law, the Rental Housing Subsidy Program Act will help informal settler families (ISFs) afford safer temporary accommodation after agreeing to vacate an illegally occupied land and while waiting to be transferred to a government housing project. ISFs who lost their homes to natural and manmade calamities are also among the target recipients of the rental cash aid. By extending a flat rental subsidy (₱3,500 each for ISFs in Metro Manila; rates in other regions will be determined by the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development and the National Economic and Development Authority), this policy will protect evicted families from being pushed out to the streets or into living in less than decent accommodations.
SHADOWS
Universal Purpose of Earthly Goods and Private Property
The National Housing Authority (NHA), a government-owned corporation in charge of resettlement housing projects intended for low-income informal settlers, said it will be “aggressive” in disqualifying beneficiaries who do not pay for or occupy the unit assigned to them.
At a Senate hearing in June on the proposed National Housing Authority Act, which seeks to extend the corporate life of the agency, NHA General Manager Marcelino Escalada explained that “if and when the original beneficiary does not occupy [the unit],... the actual need of housing is no longer there and henceforth, he no longer he ceased [sic] to qualify to a particular government housing.”
This position ignores a deeper problem in the government housing program, particularly distant resettlement which the NHA supervises. For one, paying the monthly amortization continuously and on time has been a widespread problem faced by ISFs without stable sources of income. A blanket policy on disqualification that does not consider the circumstances that lead to or aggravate the ISFs’ inability to survive in an off-city housing project, where finding a stable source of income takes years, can perpetuate homelessness in cities.