MMDA makes sure only qualified squatters entitled to housing aid

Squatter families who will benefit from the P50-million Presidential Special Fund (PSF) as housing assistance will now undergo high tech biometrics listing which was started by the Metro Manila Inter-Agency Committee on Informal Settlers (MMIAC).

Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and MMIAC Chairman Bayani Fernando said the registration and pre-qualification to be done through the biometrics system will take about a year and will ensure that only qualified informal settlers will be granted housing assistance under the MMIAC’s Comprehensive Shelter Program (CSP).

Fernando said the P10 million first tranche of the PSF to be released by the Department of Budget and Management is part of the P50 million PSF seed mobilization fund for MMIAC and will be used primarily to cover the expenses to be incurred in the biometrics registration system.

“We have started the identification of qualified informal settlers through this biometrics system. By taking each of the head of the family’s fingerprints, identification and authentication of CSP beneficiaries will be much easier and fool-proof,” Fernando said.

Fingerprint biometrics is the technology of using a person’s fingerprint characteristics for identification purposes.

“Fingerprints offer an infallible means of personal identification. Fingerprints do not change so through this system, we can easily identify registered CSP beneficiaries from those who were merely pretending to be one,” Fernando said.

MMDA assistant general manager for planning Corazon Bautista-Cruz, head of MMIAC secretariat, said around 6,000 squatter families in key areas in Metro Manila, particularly those living in danger areas and those affected by government infrastructure projects, will undergo the initial biometrics registration.

MMIAC expects only about 50 percent of the 544,609 squatter families will qualify in the CSP of the MMIAC while 40 percent will be qualified for commercial housing or those with financial capabilities to secure housing loans from institutions such as the Social Security System, Government Service Insurance System and Pag-Ibig Fund.

The remaining 10 percent, meanwhile, are the “professional squatters” who are disqualified from the CSP benefits.

Fernando said professional squatters are those who were already provided housing or relocation benefits in the past but chose to rent out or sell their properties and went back to being squatters.

MMIAC is the inter-agency body formally created by President Arroyo on May 21, 2009 to “plan, coordinate and implement, in coordination with concerned government agencies, a Comprehensive Shelter Program for informal settlers affected by government infrastructure projects and those living in danger areas in Metro Manila.”

MMIAC is headed by the MMDA chairman while the general manager of the National Housing Authority sits as vice-chairman. The other members of the MMIAC include the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor, National Anti-Poverty Commission, Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Interior and Local Government, Office of the President-External Affairs, Department of Budget and Management, Commission on Human Rights, Caritas Manila and the National Urban Poor Sectoral Council.

Fernando said the main objective of MMIAC is to provide shelter to informal settlers within a 10-year period, thereby eradicating Metro Manila’s decades-old problem on squatting.

The MMIAC chief said the committee, in providing housing to qualified beneficiaries, is looking into three types of relocation: “off-site relocation” — the transfer of an informal settler family to another area of settlement; “on-site development” — the direct purchase of the lot occupied by the informal settlers for purposes of upgrading their living environment, and the development of medium-rise buildings (MRBs) such as those in Vitas, Tondo, Manila, Pasig and Taguig cities. –Daily Tribune