Senate opens probe into Kadamay housing takeover

MANILA - Even the poorest Filipinos should work and pay for government housing projects, Senator Joseph Victor "JV" Ejercito said on Tuesday, ahead of a legislative investigation into urban group Kadamay's takeover of housing units in Bulacan.

In early March, around 4,000 Kadamay members laid claim to vacant housing units in resettlement sites in Pandi, Bulacan, including those intended for policemen and soldiers.

Duterte later promised to build better houses for the uniformed men as he ordered them to let Kadamay members have the Pandi houses.

Ejercito, head the Senate committee on urban planning and resettlement, said it is "unfair" to grant free houses to Kadamay while other Filipinos work hard to get homes.

"Wala po dapat libre. Kinakailangang mabawi rin ng gobyerno ang kanilang ipinuhunan para makapagpatayo pa muli. We have to work for it... Unfair naman po doon sa mga nagtatrabaho para magkaroon sila ng bahay," he said in a phone interview with radio DZMM.

(Houses should not be free. The government needs to earn back what it spent so it could build more houses. We have to work for it. It is unfair to those who are working so they could afford houses.)

• READ: Pabahay sa Kadamay: 'Technical malversation' kung walang amyenda sa batas

Kadamay members, he said, can either pay for the houses through the government's "cash for work" program or help build housing units in other resettlement sites.

Kadamay chairperson Gloria Arellano earlier said their group is asking government for free housing amid a housing and unemployment crisis in the country.

She noted that despite the many government housing projects, only a few have been occupied and most are left vacant. Arellano said their group wants that these units instead be given to the poor, not particularly Kadamay.

• READ: Kadamay wants free housing amid unemployment 'crisis'

NO MORE HOUSING PROJECTS?

Ejercito on Tuesday will lead a Senate probe into Kadamay's takeover, as well as other issues in the government's housing program.

The senator said the country has a 5.5-million backlog in housing units, which is aggravated in part by the inefficient location of resettlement sites that are often far from workplaces, schools and basic services. /p>

"For the past decade or so, basta na lang makapag-tayo, kahit saan mang lupalop. Ang nangyayari, nakakalungkot na kung minsan, 20, 30 percent lang ang occupancy rate," he said.

(For the past decade or so, we've haphazardly built houses without much consideration to their location. This why the occupancy rate is sometimes only at 20 or 30 percent. )

Ejercito floated the idea of suspending the construction of houses until the issue is resolved.

He also proposed streamlining the 6 different housing-related agencies into a single body, the Department of Human Settlement.

The Senate will start its investigation into these concerns later Tuesday. Invited to the hearing were representatives from the Kadamay and housing agencies.

Watch a live streaming of the hearing here.