The
undersigned parties have agreed to implement the following in pursuit of
means to provide secure tenure for all the urban poor in the Philippines
:
1.
Open and available government land shall be released for
providing housing to the urban poor. In cities around the Philippines, a great deal of unutilized
government land lies vacant, and shall be made available for meeting the
housing needs of those poor families living in communities which
absolutely cannot be redeveloped on the same site, such as communities
falling within "danger zones", etc.
2.
Existing settlements on government land which is not required for
immediate public use, shall be made available to help the urban poor to
develop their communities and build houses with secure tenure
guaranteed. There are many
settlements on government land. Without
secure tenure, communities have been unable to improve conditions in
these settlements or build decent houses.
3.
All private land occupied by existing settlements will be made
available to the occupants through land-sharing agreements between
communities and land-owners, supported by government tax-exemptions and
incentives.
4.
The Community Mortgage Program (CMP) shall be decentralized to
city-level, in order to speed up and open up the delivery of finance to
the poor. The CMP is one of
the government's most important mechanisms for enabling the urban poor
in the Philippines to develop their land and houses. But the programs centralized delivery mechanisms and
cumbersome application procedures have slowed down the delivery
considerably, and meant two and three-year delays in getting loans.
5.
Urban Poor Development Funds will be established in five more cities, to
extend the jointly-managed development fund already initiated in Quezon
City (Payatas), which involves a collaboration between the urban poor
savings schemes, the government and NGOs.
Lack of access to finance for income-generation, house-building,
house-repair and land-purchase is an enormous problem for poor
communities in the Philippines. These
city-based urban poor funds will draw funds from a combination of
people's own savings, local government resources, private sector
contributions and funds from national and international agencies.
These funds will be jointly managed by communities, cities and
NGOs. The five cities are :
*
Muntinlupa
* Iloilo
* Mandaue (Metro Cebu)
* Davao
* General Santos City
Signed
:
1.
Philippines Homeless People's Federation
Mr. Noli Pacquiao, President
Ms. Sonia Carnorderage, Treasurer
2.
Vincentian Missionaries Social Development Foundation, Inc. (VMSDFI)
Fr. Norberto Carcellar, Executive
Director
3.
Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC)
Ms. Leonora Vasquez de
Jesus, Housing Secretary
4.
League of Cities, Philippines
Mr.
Edward S. Hagedon, Hon. Secretary General
Mr. Jesse Robredo, Former
President
5.
Slum Dwellers International (SDI)
Mr.
Jockin Arputham, President
6.
United National Center for Human Settlements (UNCHS) - Habitat
Mr. William Cobbett, Acting
Head, Shelter Branch
7.
National Government of the Philippines
Mr.
Joseph Estrada, President of the Philippines
Date
: 27 November, 2000
