Nakiusap ang mga nanay ng Corazon de Jesus na makabalik sila sa kanilang sinisira nang mga tahanan para maisalba ang natitira nilang mga gamit. Pero pinipigilan sila ng mga pulis. (photo and caption by KR Guda of PinoyWeekly.org)
There is something particularly bothersome with the condescending arrogance displayed by some people with regard the issue of the urban poor and their problem on housing. Relying on pure legalese, they forward an overly simplified position that since “squatters” do not own the land where their shanties are built on, they deserve to be evicted–by force.
These people fail to recognize the social context of the problem. A fourth of Metro Manila, a staggering 584,425 families according to the National Housing Authority, are informal settlers. When the problem affects a significant portion of the population it ceases from becoming a purely legal problem of property rights and land ownership. It becomes a tragic social phenomenon, in much the same way as peasant landlessness is, and thus calls for fundamental political and economic solutions like agrarian land reform.
If you think squatters are not entitled to live in their homes, you might as well ask for the eviction of a fourth of Metro Manila for squatting on idle lands. Wow. If you don’t realize it, many of Manila’s laborers come form the urban poor. They do everything from cooking and serving your food, doing your laundry, and ironically–building your homes. You might as well ask for the paralysis of economic activity in the national capital.
Even the 1987 Constitution (Secs. 9-10, Art. XIII) recognizes the problems of the urban poor as a manifestation of a grave social ill, rejects the idea that squatting is merely an issue of property rights, and affords the urban poor protection.
Sec 10. Urban or rural poor dwellers shall not be evicted nor their dwellings demolished, except in accordance with law and in a just and humane manner.
No resettlement of urban or rural dwellers shall be undertaken without adequate consultation with them and the communities where they are to be relocated.
Naysayers are quick to make judgments about the urban poor. That they are stubborn and anti-development, lazy and unwilling to work, that they are in cahoots with syndicates, etcetera. The urban poor are not anti-development. They are not totally unwilling to move out of their shanties, because whose man’s dream to live in a squatter’s area, really? They only ask that they be relocated to homes that they can afford, and to communities that are near places of economic activity that will provide them jobs and places where there are public services and utilities–in other words, places where they could live like all Filipinos should. It escapes me why the government insists on relocating the urban poor to places where there are no jobs and where there are dilapidated public utilities and services–the very reasons they left their places of origin in the first place.
A government that fails to address the fundamental roots of poverty, especially in the countryside, that forces millions of Filipinos to “squat” in urban centers has no business evicting them from their homes. If they insist on inflicting violence and displacing a fourth of the national capital from their homes, they might as well call for a massive riot the next day, for it is instinct for any man to defend his home, sometimes to the point of anarchy and death. Thank god for activists though, however maliciously maligned by those in power, for organizing the urban poor to ensure organized political action to assert the rights of the marginalized.
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An urgent appeal to end all demolitions in San Juan
Militant group supports in-city relocation for San Juan City informal settlers
Komunidad ng maralita sa San Juan marahas na dinemolis
law student, national democracy activist, film school graduate, photography hobbyist
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8 comments to “On “Squatters””
As a side point what is your view on the socialized housing tax in Quezon City?
I live near a squatter’s area. All I can say is, based on living with them, I want them all out of there. Now that is based on first hand experience. Kung nakikitira ka nalang sa isang lugar, irespeto mo kapitbahay mo. Kaya madaming galit sa squatters. Now I don’t know how these people in San Juan are living, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. But in my experience, all the squatter’s area I have lived nearby, I want them all outta there. I pay my taxes, electricity, and did everything the law has asked me to do. I will not accept these people in my community.
Hangga’t hindi nalulutas ang matinding kahirapan dahil sa kawalan ng regular na trabaho na may disenteng sahod at benepisyo, hindi malulutas ang squatting kasama na ang paninirahan sa mga delikadong lugar at pakikipanirahan sa mga patay sa mga simenteryo kahit na libo-libo pa ang i-resettle taon-taon. Tiyak na may papalit at papalit sa mga mare-resettle at maraming iba pa ang magsisi-alis sa mga resettlements dahil pa rin sa kahirapan sa buhay. -frankmangulabnan,MIGRANTE-New Zealand,201201130155
This is at best a shallow analysis of the problem. Tulad ng sabi ni Frank, ang problema ay walang trabaho sa Pinas. Kung walang trabaho, walang income. Kung walang income, walang pambayad ng renta or walang pambili ng condo. Kaya mag-iskwat na lang.
Kung ating pababayaan na mag-iskwat ang mga tao, siyempre dadami ang iskwater. Sa Pinas lamang maraming iskwater. Sa Indonesya, Malaysia, Singapore, etc walang mga iskwater. Mali ang 1987 Constitution tungkol dito: kinukunsinti ang ganitong behavior, kaya siyempre dadami ang iskwater. Ito ang isa sa mga dahilan na kailangang i-reform ang ating consitution.
Part of our big problem is that our 1987 Constitution has no respect for property rights.
ok.
but what if it was your land these informal settlers decided to occupy?
Sa totoo lng halos lahat ng squatter’s mga walang trabaho mga magnanakaw sa kalapit na communidad,marami kaso ng krimen dito sa amin dahil lang sa pagdami ng mga squatter na yan,nabubuhay sila sa pagnanakaw,prostitusyon at drug’s at arrogante pa mga gago halatang hindi lumaki sa mabuting asal,pero hindi ko naman nilalahat meron din mga nagsusumikap at pinipilit makaalis sa ganung buhay,kaya saludo ako sa kanila. At tungkol dun sa San Juan i dont blame the police kasi kahit sa ibang bansa hindi ka pwede sumagot sa police yun pa kaya na pinagbabato sila ng bote at bato,they deserve to apply force specially buhay nila nakasalalay dun,at syempre unfair din sa mga investor’s na nakabili ng lupa kasi hindi nman nila pinulot yung pera na na invest dun sa lupa at the same time makaka likha pa sila ng trabaho para sa mga taga san juan.
We have squatters because we have tolerated a society that has rigged the entire system against people.
In our indigenous past, walang squatters. Lahat may karapatang mag-ari ng lupa. When the colonists came in, they’ve introduced land titling, using the Spanish language. So only the Spanish literate were able to own land. It doesn’t matter if your ancestors have tilled the land for generations, kung wala kang papel, wala kang lupa.
This is why you have vast haciendas, like Hacienda Mandaluyong of the Ortigas family, which is where this squatters colony originally belonged. If you look at it, Francisco Ortigas Sr. – a good friend of Presidents Quezon and Osmeña – is the original squatter, acquiring the Hacienda from the Augustinian priests.
Kung may naghihirap, may nakinabang. If the system was rigged against somebody, it was rigged in favor of someone else. We are able to pay taxes, have a job and live a life free of grinding poverty because in one way or another, nakinabang tayo at ang mga ninuno natin? Now, if it didn’t happen in our generation, does it mean wala tayong responsibilidad na itama ang sitwasyon? That’s the same reasoning na gagamitin ng mga anak natin at ng mga apo natin. Ang mga problemang minana at ipapamana ng walang kalutasan ay gagawa ng mas malaking problema.