VP NOLI URGES ARCHITECTS TO DEVELOP INNOVATIONS FOR LOW COST HOUSING, TO SUPPORT RESETTLEMENT SITES
April 25, 2008

Vice President and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) chairman Noli 'Kabayan' De Castro is looking forward to seeing all Filipino families, especially the poor, live in their own well-built homes designed by professional architects.

Speaking during the 34th National Convention of the United Architects of the Philippines (UAP) at the SMX, Mall of Asia in Pasay City recently (April 24), De Castro said he would like to see no more families living in decaying shanties or in slum communities that are barely fit for human habitation.

“I think everybody would like every Filipino family to have security in shelter as well as an orderly and decent house in a peaceful community,” he said.

He said making the said vision is the task that the housing sector is undertaking as it pursues the national shelter program.

In the last few years, De Castro said the government has been very active not just in providing shelter security and affordable housing to the Filipino poor but also in introducing reforms that will ensure faster, more efficient and continuous delivery of housing services and a more dynamic housing industry.

The government was able to give shelter security to about 12,000 families through the resettlement program for the rail linkage projects, bringing the number of relocated families within the right-of-way of the north and south rail to a total of 46,040 families in a span of three years, he said.

“Yes, I can still remember we started relocating in April 2005, not really knowing what and how to do it. Just sheer will power,” he said.

With the help of the P626 million loaned out by the community mortgage program, about 11,822 informal settlers were given the opportunity to buy their own lot last year.

Further, almost 12,000 families living on proclaimed government properties were given certificates of lot entitlement or awards to make them formal settlers.

More than 47,000 Pag-Ibig members also availed of affordable housing loans that reached to more than P23 billion in 2007.

“This is a new record for Pag-Ibig fund because of its very low interest rates. Only now has monthly amortizations have become lower than monthly house rentals,” he said.

Meanwhile, support for the housing industry has been continuous last year through red tape reduction in processing permits, licenses and the offering of guarantee of the Home Guaranty Corporation (HGC).

The government believes that the private sector should take the lead in housing, he said, adding that it is working to create an enabling environment to do so.

Thus, De Castro challenged the local architects to become more active in innovating new products, technologies and systems for low cost housing.

“By contributing your knowledge and skills to develop new techniques for low-cost housing, you will be able to use your profession to help the poor Filipino families and prove that architects and architecture are not just for the rich,” De Castro said.

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