Published January 25, 2019, 5:42 PM
By Ben Rosario

A deluge of housing problems involving some 5,000 of urban poor families in Manila has prompted Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Friday to convene the Oversight Committee on Housing to swiftly address the issues.

Arroyo has asked Negros Occidental Rep. Albee Benitez to convene the panel to facilitate the awarding of titles to the urban poor beneficiaries in Parola, both in Binondo and Tondo, Manila.

Arroyo has been visiting various urban poor communities in a bid to speed up the implementation of housing programs requiring funding by government.

Just last week she convened the Oversight Committee on the National Government Center for Urban Poor Housing to enable the remaining 8,000 qualified beneficiaries to receive their titles. She has also caused the awarding of titles of her presidential proclamations in Taguig and Cebu.

On the other hand, Benitez has also taken serious efforts at addressing the huge number of housing backlog in the country. Recently, he called on the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and the National Housing Authority to take the lead in creating a task force that will guarantee the disposition to qualified beneficiaries of the 71 hectare Manggahan Floodway Socialized Housing Project Site in Taytay, Rizal.

In his own district in Negros Occidental, Benitez set aside P4.5 million of congressional allocation to help the local government units acquire land for homeless families.

Arroyo led the distribution of Certificates of Land Awards (CELA) to a new batch of recipients in Parola.

The first batch of CELA’s was distributed to residents during her time as president in 2004.

Problems have cropped up in the implementation of Presidential Proclamation 581 that set aside five hectares of land for socialized housing project for informal settlers in Tondo and Binondo, Manila.

It was reported that the implementation of the presidential directive was slowed down by conflicting claims made by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Philippine National Railways over ownership of the designated socialized housing area.

The same problem has cropped up in Binondo, Arroyo said, but this time, the property is being claimed by the Government Service Insurance System.

The House leader said she has instructed Manila Reps. Yul Servo and Manuel Lopez to coordinate with Benitez to convene the oversight panel on housing and summon all government agencies involved in the conflict and discuss ways of implementing Proclamation 581.