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[av_heading heading=’HOUSING FOR SQUATTERS
Some 300 families to benefit from city project ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY GLENDA SOLOGASTOA
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ILOILO City – Around 300 informal settler families may soon have their own houses under the mass housing project of the city government.
Site development at a property in Barangay Sooc, Arevalo district is almost complete, and houses may be built starting 2017, the executive director of the Iloilo City Urban Poor Affairs Office (ICUPAO) said.
According to Wilfredo Jurilla, the beneficiaries are families displaced by Iloilo River development and road-widening projects.
The city government wants to build 355 houses but may reduce the number of units considering that parts of the 2-hectare relocation lot are apportioned for roads and drainages, said Jurilla.
“Actually 355 gid tani, pero tungod dako nga naigo sang karsada, basi mabuhin-buhinan [ang number of houses],” he said.
The housing project was planned five years ago. Originally it involves 700 houses with a funding of P100 million.
The original cost estimate per house was P125,000.
Of the amount, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will shoulder P70,000, while the National Housing Authority (NHA) will spend for P55,000.
But lack of sufficient funding delayed the project, said Jurilla.
The cost estimate per unit rose to P174,000, and only P50 million had been downloaded from the DSWD and the NHA, he said.
Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog vowed to find means to raise more funds, Jurilla said.
The City Engineer’s Office will supervise the project, he added.
On June 27, 2014 then President Benigno Aquino III led the inauguration of Phase I of the River Plains Subdivision relocation project in Barangay Lanit, Jaro.
The River Plains Subdivision was built for families who used to live along the Iloilo River but were displaced by the massive dredging for the arm of the sea’s rehabilitation.
Phase I covered the first 1,000 houses for the beneficiaries.
The recipients include locals from Barangay North San Jose, Molo, and informal settlers from the Dungon Creek comprising barangays Magsaysay in La Paz district; Our Lady of Lourdes, Calubihan, Desamparados, San Vicente, Cuartero, and Dungon A in Jaro district; and Bakhaw, Bolilao, Taft North, and Sta. Rosa in Mandurriao.
In May the ICUPAO urged barangay councils to stop the proliferation of informal settlers.
“Barangay officials should not allow the construction of squatter houses in their turfs. This is the easiest way to solve the problem on informal settlers,” Jurilla then said.
ICUPAO has recorded 11,518 squatter-families as of December 2015.
Of the number, Jurilla said, 2,374 were occupying waterways and 2,425 lived along shorelines.
The rest were occupying road easements, private lots, and the banks of creeks and rivers./PN
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