Payatas
From Tragedy to Strategy
as of July 24 (third week)
Words of sympathy and solidarity keep on coming,
supply of goods pouring, financial and technical offers flowing, potential
partners showing up, local volunteers get going. It must have the
miraculous intervention of the hundred of Payatas martyrs, specially
innocent children, which brings about such considerable changes and
movements. While old-schooled urban poor organizations also resurrect and
continue to make their own showcase, the challenge has always been to take
alternatives that would benefit most the disadvantaged.
Status Updates
Affected families have
alarmingly increased and roughly fall under 4 sub-sectors
·-"trash-slide"
victims (217 bodies recovered, about 82 still unidentified and allegedly withheld from legal
claimants, retrieval operations slowed down due to health hazards to
retrievers, 30 families still based in the Parish Church and over 500
families crowding in the elementary school to be transferred to Phase IV
due to outbreak of epidemia)
- relocated" victims in Erap
City (42 families with resettlement going at 6-10 families a day, 2 families
suspected to be pseudo-victims getting in through powerplay)
-"danger areas"
residents (upper and lower dumpsite, 12 families in Tres Clinic’s
extension, 125 families congested
in the old Lagro Annex School where a 4 year old child died, relocation
plans are very unclear)
closure victims"
(hand-to-mouth subsistent wastepickers unattended to by the local government, AMPAT spearheads the
usual lobbying work for reopening of the dumpsite and taking advantage of
signature campaign as outright membership)
Documentation and accounting of
affected families belonging to the different programs and organizations
are still to be finalised
42 families have been relocated
to Montalban Kasiglahan Village (Erap City) daily monitored through a
contact person (Jocelyn Cantoria) and supplied with basic needs
one-round distribution of relief
goods have been extended to around 1,100 subsistent waste-pickers (closure
victims) through group-based approach providing opportunities for data
gathering and validation of scavenging population and initial steps for
mobilization and reactivating PSAI for addressing solid waste management
issues
Interim feeding centers have been
set-up in strategic sites as alternative food distribution scheme
particularly for children while plans for Payatas dumpsite remain
uncertain (AMLAC for upper dumpsite, DIC for lower dumpsite, Phase III for
urban)
Significant Offers
1,904,868.18 (p) from MISEREOR (for
Federation as lately mentioned, instead of emergency fund as we thought)
4,120.31 US$ from Sisters of
Charity- Netherlands
313,833 (p) from ADB staff community
fund
100,000 (p) personal donation of
Ramon Heran (after reading Ceres Doyo’s article)
100,000 (p) fund for funeral-related
assistance to victims (still being worked out by Fr. Carroll)
Micro-finance grant for (1M
pledge from a certain Ateneo professor - proposal basis)
Funds for Building Construction
Materials (Silungan Foundation being worked out by Me-Ann Ignacio)
Request for Proposal (by Cordaid)
Tax-deductible donation scheme
from US (to be worked out by Barbara Pyle)
Sponsorship opportunities for
children victims
Housing-related technical
assistance (FDUP, Social Housing Movement, Phil. Water and Sanitation
Foundation)
Erap Administration’s interest
(via presidential sisters and COMELEC chairperson Harriet Demetriou) to
dialogue with VMSDFI and PSAI on project basis (not issue confrontation)
and endorsement for possible meeting with Lenny de Jesus of HUDCC
Early discussion w/ FDUP on CMP
alternatives for Montalban to be discussed with PSHAI members
Launching of Global Campaign for
land tenure (UNCHS, ACHR) and Somsook Boonyabancha’s agenda for
pressuring Erap Administration)
Upcoming Plans and Prospects
Reconditioning of Variety, Elf
(for mobility)
Setting-up of Learning Resource
Center Extension as possible half-way house schemes for students of
relocated families (budget c/o Sr.Johanna)
Fast-tracking the acquisition and
setting-up of Elderly Center in urban (adjacent to Parish convent)
Acquisition of additional water
tank trailer (for water delivery)
Montalban Resettlement (Kasiglahan
Village)
Monitoring and checking of NHA
schemes and processing of applicants to protect the rights of
"legitimate" victims from power play and opportunism
Investigation on the
controversial issues and suspicions on the safety and adequacy of Erap
City as primary resettlement (orientation and discussion with BBC-Clusters
on Urban Poor Affairs)
Ongoing deliveries of basic
supplies and household implements (link-up with donors)
Skills inventory among relocated
families to match job offers (placement opportunities)
Initial steps to organizing
potential ARC among relocated families
Feasibility of micro-credit
schemes (starter loan) via ARC scheme
Montalban Pilot Housing Project (PSHAI)
Fast-tracking processes of
securing government permits (DAR clearance finally issued)
Dialogue w/ HUDCC as alternative
to ACHR’s agenda for massive Campaign for Housing
Negotiation for Debt
Restructuring / condonation (with Domus Mariae and Caritas)
Early settlement / provisions for
victim-members (housing materials)
Site development (collective
discussion and evaluation of different offers particularly FDUP’s CMP
package - including background investigation and research on the current
status of CMP and track record of FDUP as CMP promoter and implementor –
we need Fr. Bebot’s immediate advice on this but as mentioned by Grace
lately, Fr. Bebot just wants to leave this offer open while on the other
hand, requested the community leaders to study its mechanisms and
processes and dialogue on its possibility without compromising the
community’s collective rehabilitative decision
BBC – urban poor affairs
clusters’ alert on the possible environmental risks in Brgy. San Isidro
(Montalban)
Payatas On-site Development
Building on Erap’s public
declaration to implement CMP for Payatas as a National Project (to take
over Mathay’s hidden agenda for MRB)
Maximizing the use and renovating
existing Children’s Centers (half-way houses / structures for children
of relocated families)
Bagong Silangan Property
Speeding up the re-surveying,
fencing and protection of property from invading professional squatting
syndicates
Utilizing the property for the transit
resettlement (staging) primarily for victim-members of different VMSDFI
programs via meta-legal tactics (Barangay Captain is apparently willing to
cooperate)
