The chairperson of the House committee on housing on urban development has welcomed the plenary approval of a bill that calls for the creation of the Department of Human Settlement and Urban Development.
Negros Occidental Rep. Alfredo Benitez, the panel chairperson, expressed hope that House Bill 6775 will soon get enacted, as this proposes the creation of a new government department tasked with consolidating the functions of all housing and urban development agencies, particularly the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board.
On Tuesday night, the House passed the bill on third and final reading by a 193-6 vote. The bill was among the priority legislation of the Duterte administration.
Meanwhile, socialized housing solutions provider Base believes that sustainable housing technologies can help augment the needs of the industry towards addressing the country’s 5.8-million housing backlog.
“Roughly just three years after introducing this technology here, we’ve already seen how it’s improved the lives of every farmer, family and partner who make up Base’s value chain, particularly of those whose main problem is something as basic as shelter,” said Maricen Jalandoni, general manager of Base Bahay, as she discussed the group’s proprietary Cement Bamboo Frame technology.
Base is known for their use of CBF to build sustainable and resilient homes, particularly for communities and families living in disaster-prone and high density urban areas.
Since 2014, Base has been sharing the CBF technology with partner agencies in the socialized housing sector. Together, they build homes for vulnerable communities, particularly those living along danger zones and families with limited access to housing loans.
To date, Base has built close to 400 CBF-reinforced homes across the country with more in the pipeline with help from its existing and prospective partners.
Benitez, who sponsored the bill on the floor, said HB 6775 mandates the DHSUD to be a single point of accountability for housing policies and projects, and make way for “a unified direction and consolidated efforts to make decent housing affordable and accessible to every Filipino family.”
“We are grateful for our colleagues who have supported this measure and for the President for also including this measure in his priority bills for the 17th Congress. We are very fortunate that the administration recognizes the importance of providing decent and affordable shelters to our fellow Filipinos,” Benitez said.
Benitez lamented that Republic Act 7279 or the Urban Development Housing Act, seemed to have failed to address the housing backlog.
"Neither did Executive Order No. 9 that created a coordinating body for shelter agencies of the government, address the housing backlog that stood at three million in 1992," Benitez said.
The solon earlier said the housing demand of Filipinos could balloon to 6.8 million before President Rodrigo Duterte's term ends in 2022.
He said there will be an estimated 774,441 housing needs in 2018; 788,773 in 2019; 803,405 in 2020; 818,363 in 2021 and 833,619 in 2022.
One of the bill's principal authors, Deputy Speaker and Batangas Rep. Raneo Abu, welcomed the bill's passage. "The bill will help appropriate funds to build adequate housing units, potable water, electricity and other necessities of Filipino families," Abu said.
Benitez said he is hopeful that Senate will pass its counterpart bill under the watch of Senator JV Ejercito who chairs the housing committee in the upper chamber.
The bill provides that HLURB shall be transferred to the Human Settlements Adjudication Commission (HSAC) that will be created under this act. It also said NHA; HGC; NHMFC; HDMF; Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC); and Human Settlements Adjudication Commission (HSAC) are hereby attached to the housing department for policy and program coordination, monitoring and evaluation. All these agencies shall continue to function according to existing laws and their respective Charters.
Under the measure, the DHSUD shall develop and implement urban renewal programs, own and administer government idle lands that are suitable for housing, identify lands that may be used for socialized housing sites, planning and establishment of government centers as well as new townships in urban centers.
“It is not just about putting a roof over the head, but about building homes and building communities”, Benitez stated.
He said the new department shall develop and adopt a national strategy to immediately address the provision of adequate and affordable housing to all Filipinos, and shall ensure alignment of all the policies, programs and projects of all its attached agencies to facilitate the achievement of this objective.