The Federation prepares for the President's arrival.  Despite a volatile political situation in the Philippines and a campaign to impeach the President, the Federation decided to welcome the President's request to discuss detail of their Model House. Many NGO friends in the Philippines are involved in the campaign to impeach President Estrada, but community leaders felt that this was the poor's secure tenure agenda which had no other political motive than to improve the lives of the poor.  The event was scaled down.  As with all urban poor movements there is often disagreement on strategies .....

 

 The President inspects the model house. Inside he discusses the details with the community and even offers a few suggestions on the design.  Earlier he had suggested it was difficult for the market to supply housing for 40,000 pesos. The President applauded the communities self help and design efforts to reduce costs substantially.

 

He spoke of  government efforts to fast track and ensure security of tenure for the Philippines urban poor. He endorsed and signed the MOU as a witness to the endorsement from other government officials and urban actors. Earlier he had donated 5 million pesos (additional to 15 mil earlier) for the newly established Urban Poor Development Fund.  

 

Payatas Scavengers Association President Boy Awid sums up:  
" The key to the partnerships developing in my opinion (and the reason government is cooperating ) is SAVINGS.  
Without our savings programme we are just beggars demanding help. With savings we can build our community, build our houses, run our welfare and health programmes and educate our kids. They are our main concerns at Payatas and through our savings programmes we've developed the resources, people and managerial capacities to solve these problems.  The President came because of our savings. "

 

DAY 1     HERE
DAY 2     HERE
DAY 3     YOU ARE HERE

Details on the HOUSE       HERE
The IMPACTS  - MOU       HERE
Profile of the Philippines Homeless People's Federation   HERE