DAVAO CITY – The state-run Socialize Housing Financing Corporation (SHFC) is mulling on building additional shelter programs for informal settlers by pooling the resources of government and private companies.
SHFC chief Arnulfo Cabling said he was looking forward to constructing more houses under the Kilusang Pagbabago of the Office of the President. He made the announcement following a visit to the shelter project in Barangay Ilang in Tibungco here on Tuesday.
Cabling accompanied Presidential Communication Operations Office (PCOO) Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy in the visit to the housing project for the Pag-asa Ilang Homeowners Association, Inc. (PIHAI) whose 129 families were former settlers along the barangay’s riverbank.
Cabling said the project was conceptualized when he was still barangay captain of Ilang and got the support of the city government with the then mayor, now President Rodrigo Duterte.
Now that he leads the SHFC, Cabling said he would build similar projects for other areas in the country under the Kilusang Pagbabago’s Biyaya ng Pagbabago program.
He said the concept and design will also be applied for other Marawi residents who are not recipients of the housing project under the Bangon Marawi.
There are 129 two-storey houses built within the two-hectare land donated by Holcim in Ilang. Holcim, a cement company, also provided cement materials, while PBCom donated the sand and gravel, and Steel Asia supplied the steel requirements.
Cabling said each family received a total assistance of PHP90,000 to build the houses.
The beneficiaries were trained for house-building skills by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) under a cash-for-work scheme paid out by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and Barangay Ilang.
Cabling said the project would a be a good model of community-government-private sector partnership.
The beneficiaries, who received an NC-II certification from Tesda, were identified through a census tagging by the local government.
Usec. Badoy said PCOO is helping the government’s housing program through advocacy, noting that poverty alleviation is one of the top agenda of the Duterte administration.
“This is a step for people to have homes,” she told local reporters.
Kilusang Pagbabago is a mass convergence of people and organizations from the grassroots, Indigenous Peoples and the Urban Poor. KP is more known as a support group of President Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs, criminality, corruption, and poverty
Biyaya ng Pagbabago, meanwhile, is an anti-poverty program among government agencies that aims to deliver basic services to improve the quality of life of the Filipinos and lift six million poor and marginalized individuals from poverty. (Lilian C. Mellejor/PNA)
