Two recent developments drew attention once again to one of the most serious problems—nay, gravest crisis—facing this country. One development was the debate over the wisdom of covering up the informal settlers’ (formerly squatters’) dwellings during the Miss Universe pageant period. The other development was the resignation (read: de facto firing) of Vice President Leni Robredo from the position of chairperson of HUDCC (Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council).
Clearly, the national problem to which I am referring is this country’s enormous and unrelentingly growing housing backlog. Official estimates of the magnitude of the backlog place it at 4.5 million housing units. At an average five members per family, that translates into around 20.2 million Filipinos with no decent homes of their own.
The Miss Universe matter was of no moment. No major policy issue was involved there. The organizers of the 1974 and 1996 pageants merely wanted the foreign visitors to leave this country believing that there was no poverty in the Philippines—at least not in Metro Manila.
The firing of Vice President Robredo—and the housing backlog over which she presided as HUDCC chief—was, and is, a different matter. It is not a matter of cosmetics and PR. It is about millions of Filipinos not being able to live decent lives.
The time has come for the government to tackle the housing backlog in a manner suggestive of probable success. If the management experts are right when they say that the key to an undertaking’s success is organization, the key to a successful approach to the national housing backlog is an improved housing-sector organization.
In the case of the national housing backlog, the way toward organizational improvement is transforming HUDCC from an entity merely coordinating the operations of a number of housing-related agencies to a unitary, muscular department of housing and urban development. Coordinating is good; controlling is much better.
A lot of negative things have been said about Imelda Romualdez-Marcos—and most of them have validity—but one thing that the former First Lady (now Representative) did right was to bring about the creation of a Cabinet-level entity that brought together all the housing-related agencies under one roof in a single-minded assault on the national housing problem.
That roof was the Ministry of Human Settlements, which she then proceeded to head. MHS was composed, as HUDCC is, of five agencies, namely Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG), National Housing Authority, Home Guaranty Corp., National Home Guarantee and Loan Fund and BLISS. HLURB (Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board) was subsequently added to the list of HUDCC components.
The structure of the Cabinet is not engraved in stone, and, realizing this, Congress has acted to restructure the Cabinet whenever it decided that restructuring was necessary. Thus, in recent years Congress has created the Department of Information and Communication Technology and the Department of Transportation out of the remainder of the Department of Transportation and Communications.
The creation of a Department of Housing and Urban Development is a long-overdue Cabinet structure change. It is also a no-brainer. Under present arrangements, HUDCC’s chairperson possesses Cabinet rank. And all that Congress would have to do would be to replace ‘Council’ with ‘Department.’
Congress should keep the millions of inadequately housed Filipinos waiting not one session longer.
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