Government evicts 4,400 families from waterways

THE Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) has evicted some 4,400 families (22,000 persons) from major waterways in Metro Manila.

DILG Secretary Mar Roxas said this is part of the government's Integrated Flood Plan, which he presented during the Flood Summit held last month at the House of Representatives.

About 100,000 families live in danger zones, including some 60,000 along waterways.

Roxas said the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) will evict some 19,440 families (97,200 persons) in order to clean up eight major waterways.

The government's budget for the relocation is P50 billion. A financial assistance worth P18,000 will be distributed (P1,500 a month rental assistance) to each family who agrees to be evicted even if the relocation is not yet provided.

To keep the informal settlers (squatters) from leaving their distant relocation sites, the DILG has constructed few near-site or on-site medium rise buildings in Manila.

President Benigno Aquino III has instructed that the relocation efforts should not displace families from their sources of livelihood and schools.

Source: http://www.rappler.com/news/57635-dilg-moves-families-danger-zones

Related story by UPA: 59 families in Estero de San Miguel-Legarda move to Muzon, Bulacan

Filipinos snub Caritas flood aid appeal

A week after appealing for aid for Pakistan flood victims, Caritas Filipinas is yet to receive donations from Philippine dioceses, says a Caritas official.

“We need to strategize how to drum up appeal,” said Father Edwin Gariguez, executive secretary of the bishop’s conference’s social action secretariat that administers Caritas Filipinas.

Filipinos seem unaware of what is going on in Pakistan, he said. “There’s not much media exposure.”

© Full report at ucanews.com

Floodway and Salubong

When you walk along the Manggahan Floodway these days, as we did last week, past kilometer after kilometer of bulldozed houses and rubble, you may think you are in East Jerusalem or Afghanistan. The dismal scene is not the work of the Jewish military or the Taliban, however, but that of the Philippine government evicting 60,000 poor families.

This eviction in Pasig is part of the post-Ondoy rehabilitation work, government claims, but residents say they were scarcely affected by Ondoy: no one died and the houses survived. They admit there is a need to improve the area’s abilities to resist natural disasters, but they say there is no need to remove the families. The people believe the real operative plan of government is to remove the poor and replace them with up-scale housing, commercial establishments, and to enrich those who make all that possible.

The plan to replace them was conceived long before Ondoy, the people told us. They were working then with Atty. Bienvenido Salinas of the Urban Poor Associates’ St. Thomas More Law Center to bring a case to court to stop that plan when the floods came. It’s the same plan of government, but now it is driven by the national government agencies. Before Pasig City was the driving force.

The number of families threatened in recent months by the Supreme Court decision on Manila Bay and the eviction orders of national agencies, reaches as high as 400,000 families, according to estimates based on government news reports,

The alarming dimension of all this violence is not just the sheer size, but the fact that government agencies charged with protecting the people and the institutions of civil society haven’t protested dramatically against the unusually large number of violations of law and human rights. An older Filipino told me, as we walked along the Floodway, that we were nearing the end of the democratic road since there was only silence and not a roar of protest over so many poor families shipped to far off resettlement sites where there is little work or no work for them.

On Easter Sunday, the Salubong of Jesus and the Virgin Mary was held on the Floodway at the Legazpi Bridge that spans the water. Jesus and Mary, played by giant puppets, approached each other in two bancas as thousands of people watched. At the bridge they met and a child angel removed Mary’s black veil. The white robes shone in the afternoon sun. Then side by side the bancas came to the shore where crowds of people surged to the water’s edge to meet them. The puppets were carried ashore while little girls in white sang hymns. A prayer service followed.

Wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, if the risen Jesus and Mary could come to the threatened urban poor communities and strengthen them in their struggle for a decent place to raise their children?

Jesus and Mary do come, of course, in the form of young community organizers and priests, sisters, medical workers and people of all professions and backgrounds, including the people’s own leaders, who help the poor help themselves, and help them grow in dignity and confidence. A society that stands quietly by and allows massive evictions to take place will face a harsh judgment from the Lord on Judgment Day, according to Matthew’s Gospel 25: 31-46).

As the prayer service ended, airplanes flew over in silence, as if they respected the people’s sorrow, but were admitting they couldn’t do anything to help. However, when the planes were high up, there was a powerful roar of the engines. Was that an omen that our society will no longer tolerate the eviction of thousands upon thousands of innocent children? Will the future be different?

-Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates. His email address is upa@pldtdsl.net.

PASTORAL LETTER ON URBAN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT POLICIES

PASTORAL LETTER ON URBAN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT POLICIES

Unless the lord builds the house, those who build it labor
in pain. (PS 127, 1)

After the terrible destructions brought about by typhoon Ondoy in our metropolis, we now embark in rebuilding our lives and our cities. Life must go on. We must move on. We move now to the arduous work of rehabilitation. Let us do this not haphazardly and superficially so that we rebuild on firm foundations and the sufferings of others may not be aggravated. Let us allow ourselves to be guided by the Lord and his teachings.

On October 9, Aling Myrna and her teen-age son, residents of a community living in North Fairview, were shot to death by a private security guard as they protested the location of a fence being put up to keep them and their community “out of danger!”

Why do the thousands of people, people like Aling Myrna, cling to their homesites even in danger areas, and resist relocation to safer sites outside the city? The answer is simple. Their sources of livelihood are in the city, and there are none in far-away relocation areas. Commuting to the city from these areas would take many hours each day and would cost a very substantial part of a day’s income. Better the risks of life as an informal settler in a danger zone, they argue, than death by starvation in nice houses far away.

These, be it noted, are the people who keep the city humming. They are mainly market vendors and small tradespeople, bus and taxi drivers, washwomen and house help, janitors and construction workers, even policemen, firemen and public school teachers. They do not beg in the streets or steal food. Without them the city would come to a halt. Yet there is no legal place for them in the city.

Pope John Paul II in his encyclical “Centesimus Annus” (no. 43) is sharp and to the point on this matter.

“The obligation to earn one’s bread by the sweat of one’s brow also presumes the right to do so. A society in which this right is systematically denied, in which economic policies do not allow workers to reach satisfactory levels of employment, cannot be justified from an ethical point of view, nor can that society attain social peace.”

Behind the killing of Aling Myrna and her son lies a whole “structure of sin,”: land values which are far beyond the reach of our poor and many of the middle class, low taxes on unused land, the use of vast amounts of land for shopping malls, for upscale residential subdivisions and golf courses.

The term “structure of sin” tells us that the evil is pervasive, built into the structures of our society, something of which we are all a part. If the construction workers who build our homes and offices received wages sufficient for legal income, those homes and houses would cost far more than they do. Our newspapers would cost far more if the scavengers in Payatas who collect old paper for recycling were able to live away from the garbage and filth. Indeed, practically all that we buy or the services we use bear the mark of this sin.

It is not enough then, to simply order people off the waterways. A deep restructuring of our society is called for, starting in the present crisis with urban and land policy. To this effort of restructuring, we, the Archbishop and Bishops of Metro Manila pledge our full support. Hence we call for:

1. Urban land reform so that the poor may have the possibility to have security of tenure in our cities where their livelihood is found.


2. A moratorium on demolition of the dwellings of the poor if there is no humane relocation for them as our present laws require. Humane relocation would include accessible places of work for them.


3. A follow through of the processes to allot public lands to the poor in the areas that have been given to them by presidential declarations. Let the public lands declared by the President be developed and effectively be made available to the poor.


4. Legislations to raise taxes on properties that are idle, or to altogether expropriate them. The right to private property should not be given priority but the common good.

“Christian tradition has never recognized the right to property as absolute and untouchable. The right to private property is subordinate to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone. Private property is in its essence only an instrument for respecting the principle of the universal destination of goods; in the final analysis, therefore, it is not an end but a means.” (Compendium on the Social Teachings of the Church #177)

5. The swift implementations of the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws by disallowing heavy and highly pollutive industries within our cities which are densely residential and commercial. The zoning ordinances of the cities should be reviewed. Heavy industries, and not the poor should be relocated outside of our cities. If this is done, more people will move out of our cities to work in these industries.

6. In re-settling the poor and rehabilitating our cities priority should be given to the employment of the people. Informal settlers have grown in number because of lack of employment possibilities in places outside the metropolis. The “squatting” problem is not primarily a problem of housing; it is a problem of employment.

7. Let us not blame the poor in the waterways for the flooding of our cities. Let us look beyond: the unabated logging in Sierra Madre and Mt. Banahaw, mining ventures in our mountains, haphazard collection and unplanned disposal of our garbage, irresponsible city planning and development of subdivisions, just to name a few. Together let us take a hard look at our present practices and have the political will to reform them. In truth we can say that the government officials and the rich have more to do with the destruction of our environment that aggravated the recent flood than the poor!

There are many cries for reform as we experienced the unprecedented calamities of our times. We join our voices as your pastors in this call but we call for much deeper reforms that would really address and better the situation of our cities. Only when the needs of the least in our society are addressed will our society achieve true and lasting development.

Let us not lose courage. Let is heed the voice of God in the recent events. God is telling us something. We have experienced the bayanihan and damayan spirit in a remarkable degree these few weeks. This tells us that if we want to, we can work together and be concerned even to the point of sacrifice. Let us then continue to work together and be concerned to reform our ways that the environment be respected and protected and the poor be given deeper consideration so that they too may have a more generous part in the development of our cities.



Your pastors in the Lord Jesus Christ.

+ GAUDENCIO B. CARDINAL ROSALES, D.D.
Archbishop of Manila

+ BERNARDINO C. CORTEZ, D.D.
Auxiliary Bishop of Manila

http://www.rcam.org/Homilies/2009/cardinal_rosales/pastoral_letter_on_urban_planning_and_development_policies.html

+ BRODERICK S. PABILLO
Auxiliary Bishop of Manila

URBAN POOR — WORK FORCE AND CITIZENS

Urban poor people are blamed for the floods caused by typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana). Government officials demand they be prohibited from moving back to their homes along the rivers and esteros. The president has said that in the makeover of Metro Manila we must “rid the city” of informal settlers as if they were vermin.

There is no scientific basis proposed for such violent actions. Loggers in the Sierra Madre and developers may be more guilty. We may evict 80,000 families from the waterways at great expense and suffering only to find in 20 years the floods are back and stronger than ever. There must be a rock solid scientific reason to disrupt the lives of 400,000 persons.

Riverbank and lakeside dwellers will not insist on returning to their homes if they are offered in-city relocation near their jobs and the children’s schools.

The poor were affected that fateful Saturday (Sept. 26)just as the middle-class people. Unlike the middle-class, however, the poor had no place to go except back to their homes by the waterways.

Distant relocation is not the answer as there are usually no jobs available in the far away sites. Jobs are basic: without regular income the people will be hungry and soon return.

Let us move into 21st century thinking by making Metro Manila and our other cities inclusive ones that integrate the urban poor into their midst rather than force them into illegality on degraded sites. These diminish their humanity and serve as constant reminders of social injustices perpetuated by “the only Christian country in Asia.”

We call for a serious examination of the causes of the floods. Can it not be done by the Senate? What, if any, was the role of the poor? Who is really to blame?

We call for both public and idle private land near the riverbanks to be identified and set aside for riverbank and lakeside settlement, negotiated by government for temporary social housing use until it can identify and prepare permanent social housing sites for them in the city. We believe, however, on-site upgrading is the best solution.

We also call for a serious re-examination of our current unjust and inefficient land use patterns and a serious look at the implications of urbanization for all Filipinos, especially the poorer citizenry.

It is time to initiate humane and effective approaches that will enable our urban poor workforce to remain in the city, enjoy their rights as Filipino citizens, and help realize a vibrant, competitive, humane and inclusive Asian city.

MEDIA ADVISORY: FORUM – WHO CAUSED THE FLOOD?

Attention: News Editor, News Desk, Reporters and Photojournalists

MEDIA ADVISORY

FORUM – WHO CAUSED THE FLOOD?

As the country moves to repair the damage brought by tropical storm ‘Ondoy’, we hear what the government and professionals think should be done. However, we really don’t know what the people most affected namely the urban poor, think and feel. Without their cooperation a good solution is not possible.

We are organizing a forum on Oct. 28 (Wednesday), 4:00-6:00PM, at the Ateneo de Manila University to hear the thoughts of urban poor people.

People attending will include journalists, religious superiors, academic leaders, NGO workers, government officials and poor people.

We have also invited CHR Chairperson Leila de Lima, Sr. Aida Velasquez OSB, Teodoro Katigbak, Mary Racelis, Conrado de Quiros, Florencio Abad and Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo to dialog with the poor people about one another’s solutions and analyses.

There will be an open forum and an effort to come up with some key resolutions which can be presented to government and civil society groups. These can be discussed further with the people and finally presented to media.

By the end of the afternoon we may know a little bit better what are the best solutions and be able to move further along in implementing them. We hope you can attend.

Date: October 28, 2009 (Wednesday) / 4:00-6:00PM

Venue: Conference Hall, Social Development Complex, Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City

A Pinoy ‘New Deal’

Inquirer.net

Inquirer Opinion / Columns

Commentary : A Pinoy ‘New Deal’

By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: October 18, 2009

MANILA, Philippines-In the days after Ted Kennedy's death, when people discussed his role in American political history, the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt often arose. At first it was just talk, comparing him and Kennedy, but then by some strange providence of the Lord, the man himself came back from the shadows of history. He was seen in Washington, D.C. being pushed about in his wheelchair. The former US president, father of the New Deal program that saved America’s poor in the Great Depression of the 1930s and polio victim, was back from the grave for a brief while. He seemed to enjoy every minute of his return.

He met with President Barack Obama in the White House and with Ted Kennedy’s family. Kennedy was often called “The last of the New Deal Democrats,” that is, those Democrats who worked in season and out of season almost exclusively for the poor.

Then Roosevelt surprised everyone by asking to meet with the candidates for the Philippine presidency. I was in Washington, so I was asked to help gather the candidates. We met in the Philippine Embassy in Washington. There were eight candidates, seven men and a woman. We sat in a semi-circle around his wheelchair.

I told the candidates the little I knew of the former president and his New Deal: When he entered the White House in 1933, some 30 percent of American workers were unemployed; thousands of small farms were foreclosed monthly; unions were beaten down and ineffective; and Wall Street reeled out of control. Roosevelt turned this situation upside down. He started Social Security for the old and handicapped, strengthened labor unions, saved the small farms, created jobs, controlled the banks and financiers, and effectively restored the American people’s faith in their country.

What I didn’t tell the candidates because I didn’t know how the old president would react was that critics say he brought class struggle between the rich and the poor into American politics. He said he was simply restoring justice.

“Yes,” said Roosevelt, when I finished, “and anyone of you can do the same for the Philippines and even more. I know something about the Philippines. I signed the law that created the Commonwealth. I oversaw MacArthur’s return. It wasn’t all his doing, was it? But you know all that history better than I do, so let’s talk instead of what may be more relevant, namely, our program of government in the 1930s that came to be called the ‘New Deal,’ and its usefulness in today’s Philippines. What was it, or better, what is it, since ideas are timeless? The New Deal comes down to this: we gather state power for the benefit of all citizens, but especially for the poor and handicapped. I think the Philippines needs something very much like it.”

I could see he was enjoying himself. “I have a test,” he told them, “that will help me judge who among you is most likely to introduce a New Deal-type program in your country. I’m looking for someone who is clever, passionate for the poor and lucky. I’m dead, but I can still help that person and I will. Here is the test.”

He told us there was going to be a great flood in Manila in a month or so. Hundreds of thousands would be affected. The poor living along the waterways would be blamed for the flooding and many would be banished. The rich—government officials, developers and loggers—who really did the damage would not be touched. There would be widespread hunger. Then he asked, “What will you do as a candidate when this flood occurs?”

The candidates took a few minutes to think and then one after another they told him what they would do. Roosevelt listened and at the end said, “I’m disappointed. I don’t see anything like a New Deal political analysis in your thinking. For example, who’s to blame for the floods? The poor or the rich and powerful? Don’t let them blame the poor. Blame the rich and let the poor know you are on their side in the controversy, and will be on their side as president.”

The candidates were taken aback by his criticism. “Well, what would you do?” one of them asked.

He answered, “Do you agree nothing will change unless the Philippines gets a government that acknowledges its existence to the 60-70 percent of the voters who are poor and near poor, and makes them its special and favored constituency?”

The candidates nodded in agreement. Roosevelt was happy now that he had his audience agreeing. He put a cigarette in his long black cigarette holder and lit it. Strange, though, we couldn’t smell the smoke. He went on: “In the case of the floods, I would go to the affected people and ask them what they want me and my partymates to do for them in the flood crisis. When they tell us what they want, I’d go and do it, at least, I’d try. I’d fight government efforts to evict the squatters. I’d be in the courts and in the front lines when the police came to evict them. I’d picket with the poor outside the grain bodegas if there were no food.”

He said, “Some will accuse you of electioneering, but the poor won’t and their allegiance is all you need. You must, however, be sincere. The poor will spot faking.

“I’d make sure the poor people are aware that I know what their problems are and that I really care what happens to them. In the meantime before the election, I’d spend my money to bring in earth-moving equipment to clean up the city streets and to remove the mud from the homes. I’d buy new clothes for the children and the women. The men, too, of course, but women and children first. I’d work alongside the men in the mud. I’d treat the poor women as the saints they are. We are in a democracy in the Philippines and in a democracy the majority rules, but it must be aware of its power and take advantage of that power. In democracies reform comes through the ballots of the poor.”

The candidates were writing everything down feverishly.

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates. His e-mail address is upa@pldtdsl.net.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20091018-230663/A-Pinoy-New-Deal

©Copyright 2001-2009 INQUIRER.net, An Inquirer Company

WHO CAUSED THE FLOOD

SHELTER FROM HARM A girl whiles away the hours playing in front of her house in Bagong Silangan, Q.C. on Oct. 4.




WHO CAUSED THE FLOOD

Typhoon Ondoy no sooner began to subside than government once again blamed the poor families - - estimated to number about 80,000 families (400,000 men, women and mostly children) - - for the unprecedented flooding.

The government has prohibited these poor families from returning to their homes from the evacuation centers. Housing officials talk publicly about evicting all 80,000 families and relocating them outside the city, far from jobs and basic services.

These government actions are based on the belief that the poor caused the floods by blocking the esteros and rivers. Luckily there were other explanations for the flooding. Architects, geologists and urban planners reminded us that the causes of the floods were much more complex. Cabinet and city officials connived with developers to violate sensible planning rules. Others logged and quarried in the mountains around Metro Manila. Climate change played a role. Guilty, too, are those city officials who ignored the instructions of the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) of 1992 that each city should set aside land for social housing. If that had been done 17 years ago, there would be fewer families on the rivers and esteros.

The poor are partially to blame, but there is a huge difference between the poor, the officials and developers. The latter violate the law for gain, motivated by greed. The poor live on the shabby waterways because they have too. They are there to survive and would gladly move to a relocation center in the city where they could get back and forth to their jobs. They are not necessarily opposed to relocation but to evictions and relocation that are inhuman and violate the Constitution, the country’s international covenants and laws.

We ask for two things. First, let government establish an independent board of inquiry to look into the basic causes of the flooding. We will then know who the main violators of the common good are. The study can examine also the possibilities of in-city relocation for the poor on the waterways.

Secondly, we ask government not to evict poor people until we have an explanation of what really went wrong and fully prepared and discussed plans.

The urban poor will resist evictions and relocation that violate the law and further impoverish them.

If government will not make such an inquiry, the urban poor will do so to the best of their ability.

Do not make the poor the scapegoat for the greed of the wealthy and powerful. We see poor people walking the streets looking for rice for their families. Don’t add to their suffering.

The urban poor extend their compassion to all who suffered in Ondoy, especially to the families of those who died trying to help others. May God take care of all of us.

Typhoon Ondoy and floods - Analysis with Winnie Monsod

10/02/2009 | 10:54 PM

Urban Development Plan answer to storm-related tragedies?

09/30/2009 | 08:47 PM




22 flood victims lie in state at Bagong Silangan evacuation center
09/30/2009 | 12:49 PM