The good news based on recent Palace announcements is that the Marcos administration is determined to build 6 million housing units for the low-income and poor sections of the population during its term of office.
This is a positive development that bears watching.
After all, a roof over their heads is what the poor and the homeless wish for most of all, apart from food on the table and clothes on their backs.
The president reiterated his earlier promise to provide a million affordable houses annually for indigent families under the government’s public housing program.
He gave the assurance at the groundbreaking ceremony for the 11-hectare Palayan City Township Housing Project in Nueva Ecija.
This is a three-phase project that will entail the construction of 5,100 housing units, along with support infrastructure, such as an elementary school, livelihood center, administrative offices, a central park, basketball court, a mini-market and hawker area, aquaponics area, sewage treatment plant and materials recovery facility.
And this is just the beginning. The Chief Executive said he would continue with groundbreaking activities in different parts of the country.
The one million low-cost housing units annually will certainly help ease the country’s housing problem.
Last November, President Marcos told business leaders in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit that the Philippines has embarked on “a very aggressive housing program.”
“We are aiming for one million homes, one million low-cost and socialized homes a year. It is an ambitious number but we will try very, very hard,” he said.
The Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino program aims to benefit at least six million families nationwide, with lease rights extending up to 100 years.
To support the government’s housing initiatives, several agencies, with the Government Service Insurance System in the lead, are collaborating on a housing program that will be launched next year.
According to the state pension fund, it will be working on the mass housing project in cooperation with the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development, Home Development Mutual Fund, Social Security System, Land Bank of the Philippines, and Development Bank of the Philippines.
Under the Pabahay program, the award of the housing units would be in the form of lease rights for a maximum of 100 years, giving awardees the right to use and enjoy the housing unit as a residence by paying only the monthly rental.
The sale of rights would be granted only to first-time homebuyers, Pag-Ibig Fund members, and minimum wage earners.
The socialized housing program, if implemented properly in the next five-and-a half years, will be a fitting legacy by the administration for the poor whose dream to have their own homes has remained just that—a dream that seemed impossible to achieve, until now.