SOCIAL HOUSING
The Marcos administration, through the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD), launched in September 2022 the Pambansang Pabahay para sa Pilipino Housing (4PH) Program to build and make available one million housing units per year. The flagship housing program mainly offers housing in middle- to high-rise buildings.*
By Anna Marie A Karaos and Gerald M Nicolas
PHOTO FROM THE PHILIPPINE INFORMATION AGENCY (PIA)
Integral Development Based on Human Dignity and Solidarity
Public policy and government programs must promote development that not only fulfills the material needs of citizens, but also affirms human dignity and freedom, integrity in governance, national sovereignty, and the spiritual dimension of human beings.
Lights
The DHSUD has signed more than 130 memoranda of understanding with local government units for the construction of medium- to high-rise buildings. When these projects are completed, the 4PH Program will expand the supply of housing, which has much to do with a sense of personal dignity and the growth of families (Laudato Si #152).
Shadows
The 4PH Program’s emphasis on high-rise buildings neglects other dimensions of wellbeing. Living in a high-rise, for one, could deprive people, especially children, of a sense of community. This contributes to a feeling of alienation and isolation that have been proven to negatively impact health. High-rises also have the tendency to isolate individuals from the street, significantly limiting chance encounters, which are essential to developing their social capital and personality.
Universal Purpose of Earthly Goods and Private Property
Public policy and government programs must reflect the conviction that all the goods of the earth are intended to fulfill the needs of all and to be shared fairly by all. It must recognize that private property has a social dimension, and that the rights of private ownership are limited by the urgent basic needs of others for food, safe and decent housing, and livelihood.
Lights
According to the DHSUD, the 4PH Program will give landowners an “opportunity to develop their properties for optimum advantage.” Although most of the projects that have broken ground will be built on lands owned by local governments, the DHSUD has been appealing to private landowners to “allow us to explore prospects which can be mutually beneficial to all parties involved.” If these properties are tapped for public housing, then the 4PH Program can serve as an instrument to promote the social function of private property (Mater et Magistra #119).
Shadows
The 4PH Program’s emphasis on high-rise buildings neglects other dimensions of well-being. Living in a high-rise, for one, could deprive people, especially children, of a sense of community. This contributes to a feeling of alienation and isolation that have been proven to negatively impact health. High-rises also have the tendency to isolate individuals from the street, significantly limiting chance encounters, which are essential to developing their social capital and personality.
Social Justice and Love
Public policy and government programs must correct historical injustice to groups of the marginalized and must promote equality, within the context of love for one’s fellow human beings.
Lights
By allowing urban informal settlers to stay in cities, the 4PH Program could promote spatial justice or the “fair and equitable distribution in space of socially valued resources and opportunities to use them.” This would allow for the integration of the urban poor who have been forced to inhabit marginal areas and impoverished neighborhoods.
Shadows
High-rises, which the 4PH Program prefers to build, raise the price of nearby land. This is because more people can live or work in a smaller area, which increases demand for land. This can make the construction of affordable housing (for other segments of the population) less feasible and produce segregation of urban land uses. This can widen inequality in society.
Love of Preference for the Poor
Public policy and government programs must be oriented toward meeting the needs of the most vulnerable and marginalized in society.
Lights
The 4PH Program prioritizes informal settlers, low income earners, and the underprivileged. Among informal settler families, those living along danger zones and often enduring floods and landslides are on top of the list of the priority. The program could benefit 2.45 million informal settlers—of which 600,000 are in Metro Manila—who are “victims of dehumanizing living conditions” (Octogesima Adveniens #11).
Shadows
Although beneficiaries of the 4PH will reportedly receive interest support to reduce their monthly amortization, the amount will remain unaffordable for those in the lowest income groups. The DHSUD estimates the average monthly amortization in a high-rise housing project at ₱8,000, which can go down to ₱3,500 to ₱4,000 if there is an interest subsidy. This subsidized amount is still beyond the means of most urban informal settlers, creating the possibility of families unable to pay their amortization going back to being informal settlers.
Value of Human Work
Public policy and government programs must affirm human labor as the most important element of production, establish fair compensation that allows workers to raise families within a decent standard of living, protect the rights of workers to self-organization, and create opportunities for employment and livelihood with dignity.
Lights
With the housing projects located within cities, the 4PH Program recognizes the importance of keeping beneficiaries, especially informal settlers and informal sector workers, near their sources of livelihood.
Shadows
Living in high-rises will be difficult for urban poor households whose primary sources of income are home-based. High-rise buildings are subject to a variety of rules and restrictions that could impact the activities of hawkers, food vendors, sari-sari store owners, and auto repair service providers.
Peace and Active Non-violence
Public policy and government programs must promote peace not as the suppression of conflict, but as the result of constructive dialogue and holistic solutions which treat conflicting parties as human beings and address the root causes of conflict.
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Shadows
Integrity of Creation
Public policy and government programs must safeguard and conserve natural resources and promote production that does not destroy the environment.
Lights
In-city multi-story housing, which the 4PH Program pursues, allows people to live close to each other and to the services they use, making it a better alternative to urban sprawl (as seen, for example, in off-city mass housing projects), which results in increased energy use and pollution as well as displaces other land uses. Housing that is both compact and walkable is the most environmentally friendly.
Shadows
High-rise buildings have been found to have “a drastically higher carbon impact.” Their construction consumes large amounts of energy and resources (including fresh water), emits greenhouse gases, and generates significant amounts of waste. High-density but low-rise buildings are therefore more environmentally friendly.
People Empowerment
Public policy and government programs must enable people to become “active and responsible subjects of social life,” institutionalizing mechanisms for meaningful participation at all levels of governance and protecting the civil rights and freedoms which allow such participation. Public policy and government programs must nurture the development of strong civil society organizations and institutions and protect the autonomy of civil society from the state, recognizing the principle of subsidiarity which requires that decisions be made as much as possible at the level closest to the people.
Lights
Shadows
With its focus on the 4PH Program, DHSUD does not seem to support community-driven housing projects developed through what civil society organizations call the “people’s plan” approach. For example, Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC), one of DHSUD’s attached agencies, has been pushing to convert a low-rise housing project it approved in 2016 and painstakingly developed by a group of informal settler families in Manila and their partner NGOs into a complex of 32-story residential buildings. Such a move invalidates the effort of organized communities.
*Although not explicitly stated in the National Building Code of the Philippines, a building is considered medium-rise if it has 6 to 15 stories and high-rise if it has 16 to 60 floors.