Political will to relocate illegal settlers starts in Philippines

Manila: As an art critic and a political writer, I used to complain a lot about urban blight brought about by the growing colonies of illegal settlers in Metro Manila. I am still complaining even if I learned in school, a long time ago, at the prestigious University of the Philippines, that one must be a socialist at heart by taking care of the poor. As I grew older, I have slowly imbibed the philosophy of religious groups: that having compassion for the poor or loving them is important, a kind of pay-back or equity-building, because they render services to the growing middle class and the upper class in high-end villages and gated mansions in Metro Manila. Yes, they have satisfied and spoiled the working class to the satisfaction of many Filipinos who no longer know the value of doing things that they should be doing, hands on, inside their homes.

Even the University of the Philippines in Diliman, is now suffering from a misguided pro-poor value. It could hardly solve its humongous problem with illegal settlers. It could not complete its fences for the protection of its bright students, the crème de la crème of young intellectuals, the future leaders.

The quality of life it has offered to professors who continue, against all odds, to carry the heavy torch of higher education from the pit of ugliness, is outrageously zero. UP’s surroundings and buildings have become very ugly, a pitiful sight for anyone who believes that education, as a whole, or UP in particular, is a major institution that can save Filipinos from anomie, backwardness, dependency, lack of sense of power and dynamism, small-mindedness, and stupidity.

If UP could not eradicate from its backyard chaos, ugliness and underdevelopment, it could not train future leaders to know instinctively the importance of order more than chaos, development more than underdevelopment, and beautify more than ugliness.

Well, there is no storm strong enough to flash out UP’s illegal residents. It will not happen with a storm because UP is in one of the highest and safest places in suburban Quezon City. A stormy mind is needed to make things work for a sense of order and beauty in UP.

In Metro Manila, generations of squatters have mushroomed outside of UP, aided by local government officials who are always greedy of votes, who have criminally created a mindset of dependence among poor people who now think, despite their expertise in services and their earnings from services, that they are poor, will remain poor, and should not invest on housing which is ludicrously affordable in the Philippines.

Wrongly taught by organisers of urban poor settlers, wrongly comforted by local government officials who want popularity more than praises for real governance, wrongly abetted by religious groups that seek magical transformation in the din of poverty, many poor people have become satisfied with misery as a necessary evil; with low life as a requirement for love and compassion; and with the no-win-win patronage politics that weakens resolve for development. They go through these stages of hell in Metro Manila to get something in return, like small measures of government assistance during calamities that occur 21 times a year during the rainy season.

Stormy minds are now brewing with fast-track solutions to the unprecedented problems that were magnified by the devastations of typhoons Ketsana (Ondoy) in Metro Manila and nearby provinces last September 26, Parma and Melor (Pepeng and Quedan) in northern Luzon from October 3 to 12.

Stormy minds are now trying to tackle the heart of Philippine ills such as environment degradation of illegal loggers; rampant use and indiscriminate waste disposal of plastic products; lack of will among local government officials to build flood control projects, solve squatters’ problem, stop developers and institutions from building on dangerous zones because the moneyed ones have made the same violations done by poor illegal settlers, in greater areas. All these deficiencies, faults, weaknesses of appointed and elected government leaders, many of whom have studied in UP, have been shamelessly magnified by nature’s fury, through the storms that wrecked havoc in the Philippines.

In a meeting with disaster officials, cabinet members, and lawmakers on October 15, President Gloria Arroyo vowed to implement forced relocation of (poor and rich) illegal settlers that have clogged lakeshores, riverbanks, beaches, watersheds, flood control areas, esteros (in Manila’s China town), and other high-risk areas in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

She assigned Vice President Noli de Castro to implement the government’s relocation plan of illegal settlers. De Castro, in turn, has identified the relocation sites in San Mateo and Rodriguez towns in Rizal, Calauan in Laguna, southern Luzon, and San Miguel in northern suburban Bulacan.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno also called on local government officials to help de Castro by identifying the lands in their cities and towns for relocation of illegal sellers.

“Some local officials were opposed to the idea of relocating squatters and residents (including companies) out of endangered sites,” confessed Press Secretary Cerge Remonde.

Arroyo’s two executive orders, to be released soon, calls for the permanent relocation of squatters along the Pasig River which traverses a wide area in Metro Manila, the Marikina River in suburban Marikina, the Laguna lake development in southern Luzon, and other waterways in Cainta, suburban Rizal. Local government officials who oppose the plan will be punished.

“Being a politician, President Arroyo understands these (opposition to relocation) but she is determined to enforce her orders for the long-term good,” Remonde said, adding that Arroyo’s plan would mean losing votes of local officials who are running for elections in 2010.

“The President will have the political will to achieve her objectives to save lives and property until the end of her term,” said Remonde, who added that implementation of a long-term plan to make the nation’s capital safer from natural calamities seven moths before the May 2010 elections, might eventually become a reality.

Several groups have done several geophysical maps of the Philippines to guide developments and plans. In 1997, a World Bank funded project was done. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) had done similar studies on fault-line areas and other places that have the potential to sink during storms and flashfloods.

But some of these areas have been populated by middle class subdivisions or bought by big businessmen for condominium and residential developments. All studies on these things have not been released to the public and were not used by local government officials to implement sound development plans.

“The President recognizes that the topography and geography of Metro Manila will have to change because of this (flooding),” said Rermonde.

Ketsana left 377 dead in Metro Manila and nearby provinces. Landslides and flooding in northern Luzon have killed 477. In all, the three typhoon’s death toll has reached 847 and could reach up to 1,000. A lot of flooded places have remained underwater and were predicted to remain underwater for the next three to four months.