http://www.hudcc.gov.

ph/content/history

Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council

HISTORY
The Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) was created by then President Corazon C. Aquino by
virtue of Executive Order No. 90 dated 17 December 1986. The EO, which also abolished the Ministry of Human Settlements, placed
HUDCC under the direct supervision of the Office of the President to serve as the highest policy making body for housing and
coordinate the activities of the key housing agencies to ensure the accomplishment of the Government Shelter Program.

On 25 May 1989 and May 28, 2001 , Executive Order No. 357 and Executive Order No. 20 were issued respectively, to
strengthen HUDCC into department level organization by conferring it with the power to exercise overall administrative supervision over
the key housing agencies; set and ensure the attainment of targets and objectives for the housing sector; review the organization,
programs and projects of the key housing agencies; decentralize its operations and enlist the assistance of the Department of Budget
and Management in securing continuing funding support to the National Shelter program.

In 1992, the Urban Development and Housing Act (RA 7279) mandated the HUDCC to direct the formulation of a National
Urban Development and Housing Framework in coordination with the Local Government Units and other public and private sector
agencies; design of a system for the registration qualified socialized housing beneficiaries and inventory of land suitable for socialized
housing; and provide, through its attached housing agencies, the LGUs with support for the preparation of town and land use plans,
data for forward planning and investment programming, and assistance in obtaining funds and other resources for housing and urban
development.

From 1986 to present, there are several executive and legislative issuances including the three laws mentioned above, that
provide or authorize HUDCC with specific functions and/or require it to undertake certain tasks related to housing and urban
development. These legal and legislative fiats assigned duties and responsibilities to HUDCC that are related to its original mandate as
the lead agency in housing and urban development.

http://www.nha.gov.ph/about_us/brief_history.html

National Housing Authority (Posted 18Feb2014)

NHAs' Mandate
Under PD 757 dated 31 July 1975. NHA was tasked to develop and implement a comprehensive and integrated housing program
which shall embrace, among others, housing development and resettlement, sources and schemes of financing, and delineation of
government and private sector participation.

The National Housing Authority (NHA) is the sole national agency mandated to engage in housing production for low
income families. It traces its roots to the People's Homesite Corporation (PHC), the first government housing agency
established on 14 October 1938 and to the National Housing Commission (NHC) which was created seven years later, on
17 September 1945. These two agencies, the PHC and the NHC, were eventually merged on 4 October 1947 into the
People's Homesite and Housing Corporation (PHHC).

In the years that followed, six(6) more housing agencies were created to respond to separate and distinct shelter
requirements, namely: the Presidential Assistant on Housing and Resettlement Agency (PAHRA); the Tondo Foreshore
Development Authority (TFDA); the Central Institute for the Training and Relocation of Urban Squatters (CITRUS); the
Presidential Committee for Housing and Urban Resettlement (PRECHUR); the Sapang Palay Development Committee
(SPDC); the Inter-Agency task Force to Undertake the Relocation of Families in Barrio Nabacaan, Villanueva, Misamis
Oriental. Eventually, on 15 October 1975, the National Housing Authority was organized as a government-owned and-
controlled corporation, by virtue of Presidential Decree No. 757 dated 31 July 1975. All other housing agencies were
abolished by the said decree. The NHA took over and integrated the functions of the abolished agencies - the PHHC and
the six (6) other housing agencies. The creation of the NHA is the second attempt of the government to integrate all
housing efforts under a single agency, twenty-eight years after the merger under the PHHC.

Three years later, the Ministry of Human Settlements (MHS) was created in 1978. The Ministry adopted the wholistic
approach to housing. The NHA was placed as an attached agency to the MHS.

On 26 March 1986, Executive Order No. 10 was issued placing the NHA as well as the other agencies attached to the
abolished MHS, under the administrative supervision of the office of the President. Subsequently, Executive Order No. 90
was issued on 17 December 1986, rationalizing the housing structure in the government along lines of specialization and
concentration.

EO 90 identified the key housing agencies to implement the National Shelter Program and defined their respective
mandates. The NHA was mandated to be the sole government agency to engage in housing production. Under the said
Executive Order, NHA was placed under the policy and program supervision of the Housing and Urban Development
Coordinating Council (HUDCC), the umbrella agency for shelter charged with the main function of coordinating the
activities of various government housing agencies engaged in production, finance and regulation.

Executive Order No. 20 on 28 May 2001 reaffirmed mass housing as a centerpiece program in the poverty alleviation
efforts of government. Said EO likewise reaffirmed HUDCC's administrative supervision over the housing agencies
including the NHA.

http://philrights.org/from-squatters-into-informal-settlers/

There is nothing new about the issue of squatting. It has been a phenomenon in Metro Manila for more than 50
years now.

Squatting became a stark phenomenon in Manila after the Second World War, when a large number of war victims
built houses around Intramuros and Tondo Foreshoreland, which were reserved spaces for the expansion of the
Manila Port.

The national capital opened opportunities after the war. Factories opened, commerce and services regained traction
and offices of the neocolonial government, which were being organized along the independence that the US
granted the Philippines, implemented a recruitment program. New migrants arrived continually. According to official
estimates, Manila and suburbs had around 46,000 squatters in 1946; it rose to 98,000 in 1956 and to 283,000 in
1963.

As early as 1960, hundreds of thousands of families have been feeling the strain of housing problems and relocation
in Metro Manila.

Migrants continued to flow to the national capital even after factories were not allowed within a 50-kilometer radius
from Manila and incentives were offered for businesses to operate in the provinces. According to a 1984 USAID
study, from 1970-1980, the population of Quezon City increased by 48.6%, much faster than the increase in Manila
at the same period. The number of squatters in Metro Manila was estimated at 1.6 million in 1981. When Ferdinand
Marcos fell in 1986, new communities emerged in estates owned by Marcos cronies. The houses (shanties) along
Roxas Boulevard and in river banks and waterways became dense.

Despite massive and forcible eviction from private lots and public lands, new groups of informal communities
continue to mushroom. According to the MMDAs records, Metro Manila had 2.8 million (556, 526 families)
squatters in 2010.

As a result of the expansion of production for export and for food, arable lands have reached their limits. Conflicts
ignited due to land grabbing. This pushed the impoverished population to migrate to new places to look for livelihood
opportunities. Central Luzon first experienced this during the first decade of the 1900s. This is also what happened
during the 1950s (until the 1970s) in Northern Luzon and Mindanao, the last frontiers of the Philippines.

Because of migration, populations in these places grew faster, compared to those in other parts of the country.
Government agencies intervened while local and foreign capital poured into these areas. Like what happened in
Central Luzon, the influx of migrants intensified and widened the struggle for land rights and production relations.

At the start of 1970, powerful families, insisting that the tillers were squatters, persecuted many settlers including
their grandchildren who thought that the land they were tilling were theirs. They either evicted or forced settlers to
become tenants. Most of those who agreed to become tenants underwent severe exploitative conditions.
The expansion of agribusinesses in Mindanao hastened accumulation of land by landlords and foreign companies.
Meanwhile, people from the lowlands raced to corner natives lands in the hilly areas as these were public lands
and could be developed. Construction of dams and roads and the expansion of logging companies further reduced
the lands once occupied by the indigenous populations.

In the urban areas, private entities, if not speculators, owned or controlled large vacant lots that could otherwise
have been available for housing. Because the minimum wage has usually been not enough to afford a lot and build
a house or rent an apartment, workers families and seasonal workers get perennially trapped in renting units in
informal communities. A big number have also built shanties in private lands that are not guarded, with some
amount paid to syndicates controlling these lands. When these reached their limits and squatting became strictly
forbidden, the people have no other recourse but to build in high-risk areas like sea shores and riversides, under
bridges and transmission lines, in garbage dumps and in other dangerous places.

Laws governing housing and relocation

During the American occupation, housing policies in Manila dealt with the problem of sanitation and concentration of
settlers around business areas. Among those implemented were business codes and sanitation laws in slum areas
in the 1930s.

During this period and until the 1950s, new communities were opened for relocation. Among these were Projects 1
8 in Diliman, Quezon City and the Vitas tenement houses in Tondo.

The government implemented the Public Housing Policy (1947) that established the Peoples Homesite and
Housing Corporation (PHHC). A few years later, it put up the Slum Clearance Committee which, with the help of the
PHHC, relocated thousands of families from Tondo and Quezon City to Sapang Palay in Bulacan in the 1960s.

During President Marcos time, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank supported the programs for the
development of relocation and on-site development. Carmona and Dasmarias in Cavite and San Pedro in
Laguna opened as relocation sites. Along with the establishment of the National Housing Authority, PD 772 made
squatting a crime, making the Philippines one of only two countries (the other is South Africa) where squatting is a
crime. The government formulated the National Shelter Program which became the over-all framework for dealing
with housing needs of all income classes.

Imelda Marcos held both the position as Governor of Metro Manila (established in 1975) and as Minister of Human
Settlements and Ecology or MHSE until the downfall of the dictatorship in 1986. The MHSE, through loans from the
World Bank, initiated the Bagong Lipunan Improvement of Sites and Services (BLISS) housing projects not only in
Metro Manila but also in other provinces.

From 1960 to 1992, the government transferred some 328,000 families to resettlement sites 2540 kms from Metro
Manila. According to the Asian Coalition on Housing Rights, during Corazon C. Aquinos time, the government
would bring some 100,000 persons to relocation sites yearly. During the said period, Sapang Palay and Carmona
had a 60% abandonment rate.

Congress enacted RA 7279 or the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) in 1992. The law gave a new
name for the squatters: informal settlers. Essentially, UDHA gives protection for big private ownership of land in the
urban areas, ensuring that these are protected from illegal occupants. The law also widened the scope of private
sector participation in the National Shelter Program (NSP).

In the middle of the Arroyo administrations term, infrastructure projects of the government led to the demolition of
hundreds of thousands of families (from along railways, C4 road, C5 road, and from Fort Bonifacio). During the
same period, new relocation sites in Bulacan, Valenzuela and Caloocan opened.

Under the PNoy administration, 556,526 families in Metro Manila have to be brought to relocation sites not only to
solve the problem of flooding but also to give way to infrastructure projects and private real estate developments.

Neoliberalism in the housing program

The World Bank started allotting funds for loans for housing programs in the Philippines in the 1970s as part of its
push to create a huge housing industry worldwide and a market that can sustain this. The participation of the private
sector was encouraged, especially of the banks, while governments gradually decreased their subsidies for
affordable housing.

The WB funded the slum upgrading projects and on-site developments (BLISS) in the country towards the end of
the 1970s. It lent P672M for the Dagat-Dagatan project (1976) and P317M for 13 other slum areas in other parts of
Metro Manila (1980-84). It also allotted $115M for projects such as slum upgrading in Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo
city and Bacolod.

From the 1980s to the 1990s, the WB forced upon the Philippines Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) as a way
of restructuring the countrys worsening external debt. Among the WBs other impositions were reduction in
government spending and minimizing if not totally doing away with its hand in any type of business. Deregulation
was to be operational in all industries, entry of foreign commodities had to be liberalized, companies and services
including housing projects were to be privatized.

Private banks that got the big role and benefitted from the implementation of neoliberal policies in the housing
program reaped windfall profits. They principally funded loans and mortgage plans and even the speculation in land
pricing and capital for construction.

Loans for housing from private banks started at PhP41M in 1975; it rose to PhP1B in 1980, became PhP123B in
1995 and ballooned to PhP821B in 2012. Loans that represent 20% of the total loan portfolio of private banks in the
Philippines widened their scope to include property development and securities. International banks subsidiaries or
stocks could be traced in these local banks.

A broad market among different income classes in the Philippines has been created and real estate companies,
construction companies and banks have largely merged for this industry. Among the biggest property developers in
the Philippines are Ayala Land that launched 67 projects valued at PhP90B in 2012 and profited PhP6.6B during the
first quarter of 2013; SM Land (which, in the third quarter of 2012 alone, profited PhP3.3B); and Megaworld, which
allotted PhP25B for its present projects and an additional PhP65B for the development of Uptown Bonifacio in the
next few years. Next to these are Robinsons Land, Federal Land Inc., Eton Properties, Shang Properties, Vista
Land, DMCI Homes and Filinvest Land Inc.

These developers compete for the income that OFWs set aside for housing and residence for the relatively
increasing workers in the outsourcing business. They benefit from the continuing reclamation of thousands of
hectares in Manila Bay.

The National Informal Settlers Slum Upgrading Strategy (NISUS) is being finalized under the guidance of the WB.
NISUS is a comprehensive shelter program of the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) for the last three years of the
PNoy administration. The Cities Alliance, a WB initiative, will fund the study worth $450,000.

The PDP is the blueprint for the intensification of neoliberalism in the Philippines, with the Public-Private Partnership
(PPP) as its primary component. Under such a scheme, informalization will be solved not in the context of
addressing the root of the problem (i.e., the growing number of squatters), but by having informal settlers covered by
the distribution of goods and services (construction, electricity, water, etc.) and let corporations and banks earn
large profits from all the poverty-stricken families.

Aside from the occasional increase in employment in the construction business, neoliberal policies have over-
powered the already underdeveloped local manufacturing; it has also kept the countrys agricultural sector
backward. Neoliberal policies have only exacerbated the unemployment problem in the Philippines. It is not
surprising then that informal settlers continue to increase not only in Metro Manila but also in other cities. According
to the National Statistics Office (2010), there are 1.4M squatter families in the whole country (or an estimated 8.5M
persons, comprising about 10% of the countrys population).

A product of an exploitative system

Safe and adequate housing is a human right.

peoples right and a serious peoples movement should desire to bring endangered families to the safest relocation
sites.

The backward economy has given birth to hundreds of thousands of labor power that compete for a few jobs. This is
a situation that cannot be avoided by any serious program to solve the problem of squatting. The implementation
of neoliberalism has further aggravated this.

The increase in number of squatters will continue for as long as the social roots that produced this remain. The
squatting phenomenon in the country is a product of the neocolonial order and it is imperative to continue exposing
and solving the roots of this order regardless of whether the struggle for safe, affordable, and appropriate relocation
is achieved or not.

In relocation sites, the people should go on and fight for job creation and oppose economic policies that stunt the
nations growth. And this demand can be achieved if the nation upholds national industrialization and agricultural
modernization.

To do this, however, the Philippines has to assert national sovereignty and freedom from US imperialist control.

As the people dismantle the backward order, they will solve the housing problem by using state power over lands,
beyond the right of private individuals (imminent domain) and by deciding to distribute residential places to the
population as their priority in land-use planning.