P10b earmarked for squatters

President Benigno Aquino III said the government will spend P10.55 billion for the resettlement of squatters during his watch.

Mr. Aquino, at the 25th anniversary celebration of the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor , said there are over 1.3 million families of informal settlers in the country, close to half of whom live in Metro Manila.

“This is something that we are focused on, to relocate them to safer, more peaceful, and more developed locales,” Mr. Aquino said.

“We have off-city solutions or our return-to-province program (for informal settlers),” the President said.

Mr. Aquino said the government will spend P10 billion for a vertical housing project in the National Capital Region to house 127,000 informal settler families, including 20,000 living in perilous places.

At least P450 million will be spent for a vertical housing project in Camarin, Caloocan City to benefit informal settler families from North Triangle, Quezon City while P100 million will be for housing units benefiting 4,000 informal settler families residing near the Iloilo River.

Mr. Aquino said indigent families in Metro Manila will receive two hectares of farm land each under his administration’s comprehensive program on illegal settlers.

He said the government has identified some 1.5 million hectares of farm land that can be distributed to an initial 560,000 informal settler families in Metro Manila in a bid to decongest the capital and improve agricultural production nationwide.

“The Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environment inventory shows we can lend, lease or give two hectares of land per indigent family provided they cultivate agricultural crops, develop, and earn from the land they will live on,” Mr. Aquino said.

He said initial studies showed the government can match the specific provinces where the indigent families would want to transfer to, with some 1.5 million hectares of state-owned land nationwide. –Joyce Pangco Pañares, Manila Standard Today