Manila: More than 85 families opposed a police-demolition team with rocks, soda bottles and excrement and urine packed in small plastic bags a day before government authorities imposed a relocation project to take out illegal settlers in suburban Quezon City, sources said.

“We are prepared to stop the demolition team and its police escort,” said Lorena Tuano, whose parents have been illegally squatting with 87 families at four lots on Scout Bayoran Street and Mother Ignacia streets.

“Some 400 policemen were ready to endure the punishment. All of them were ordered to take a bath after their mission — to relocate the families that have been squatting for years in Quezon City,” said police station commander Superintendent Limuel Obon.

“A policeman and a member of a demolition team were hurt in the incident,” said Obon, adding they were brought to a nearby medical centre.

Clashes began at seven in the morning and ended at noon, but policemen and members of the demolition team managed to enter the colony of shanties after all the illegal settlers voluntarily left their homes at past five in the afternoon, said Oban.

A total of 300 families was in the squatter colony several months ago, but only 200 families took advantage of the local government’s offer of financial assistance and relocation fees that the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor, a government agency including leaders of urban poor associations have been negotiating since 2013.

“A lower court in Quezon City had issued a permit for the demolition project,” explained Oban, adding that Quezon City’s task force for the control, prevention and removal of illegal structures and squatting (Copriss) could not make any move in the slum area unless the two camps have reached a settlement.

The lot is owned by a private company engaged in real estate leasing business. It is included in the areas targeted by Quezon City to develop for tourism.

The Philippine has a law that protects slum dwellers. It has a provision that illegal settlers must have a relocation site and financial assistance before they are relocated and their shanties demolished.

Thirty per cent of 10 million residents in Metro Manila are slum dwellers, records showed. They have growing colonies under bridges, on river banks, peripheries of abandoned an privately-owned real estate, and government-owned lands.

Politicians condone the growth of squatter colonies because they can manipulate poor people for vote buying during elections.