Flynn 1 The Housing Crisis in Metro Manila Introduction Metro Manila is one of the largest and densest urbanized regions in the entire world. Officially denoted as the National Capital Region (NCR), Metro Manila is comprised of seventeen different cities grouped into four districts. The region has grown immensely in recent decades, from a population just below 10 million in 2000 to one of nearly 13 million in 2015 (Philippine Statistics Authority). The increase can be attributed to natural growth as well as high rates of in-migration from rural residents attempting to escape poverty by pursuing employment in the growing city economies. But poverty in the Philippines is not limited to rural areas and the country faces large socioeconomic inequalities that have not been addressed in proportion to the growing population, resulting in an increase in urban poverty and land scarcity in desirable locations. This paper aims to explore urban poverty in Metro Manila through the lense of housing and informal settlements with a focus on the relationships between government, community based groups, and their constituents. It will provide insight into some of the strategies that advocacy groups take at the local level in order to improve informality and urban poverty in the region. Historical Overview The Philippines have historically had a strong, centralized governance system beginning with Spanish colonization in the 16th century and continuing beyond the country’s independence in 1946. The nation first passed legislation in 1959 that attempted to grant greater powers, financial tools, and civil responsibilities to local and municipal governments (Brillantes). The Decentralization Act of 1967 was the next piece of hallmark legislation further expanding the
Flynn 2 powers of local government and was enacted a year after Ferdinand Marcos took office for his first time as the President of the Philippines. However, by 1972 Marcos had declared martial law and all previous powers that had been given to local officials were vested in the hands of Marcos. The regime remained in power until 1986 when Marcos was overthrown, and the new democratic, but politically unsure state looked towards legal reform through decentralization. Contradicting Changes The Philippines began to follow the global shift away from strong nation-states and towards democratic institutions. There was a newfound sense of legitimacy and value in fair elections, civic involvement, and local control. The Local Government Code (LGC), passed in 1991, was a hallmark piece of legislation that “devolved significant powers of planning, policy making and revenue generation, and responsibilities for service provision to local governments at the city and municipal level� (Shatkin). Planning at the local level was to be handled by Local Development Councils, which the LGC required to have one-fourth of the representatives from people’s organizations. The government also acknowledged the conditions of the urban poor in passing the Urban Housing and Development Act (UDHA) of 1992. The UDHA created numerous new agencies and programs for the provision of affordable housing (Ramos). It also required that local government address affordable housing by setting aside public land and monitoring conditions of informal settlements through censuses. These two legal reforms were significant steps towards decentralization and defined the role that government should take when addressing urban housing issues. However, the legal changes have failed to make a significant difference in the housing crisis and living conditions of informal settlers in the face of rising land costs and in-migration to urban areas.
Flynn 3 The LGC and UDHA have not achieved their original purposes in part because of a global shift towards free-market mechanisms and export based economies as a source of national economic growth (Shatkin). While the Filipino government was decentralized, it was also adopting an unprecedented neoliberal approach to governance which meant relying on open markets and private investment to further economic development. The government stepped away from its social welfare responsibilities on the national level and expected local and neighborhood governments to solve the national and regional problems of urban poverty. Community groups have attempted to step in as advocates for informal settlers but the contradiction still exists in that small, localized groups are unable to handle issues far more pervasive, complex, and rooted in national institutions than they are equipped to handle. The Formation of Community Organizations The tumultuous political history of the Philippines is intertwined with its history of land, housing, and civil participation and continues to influence the country’s housing conditions today Informal settlements had always existed in Metro Manila but community resistance centered around land security and physical improvements grew to new heights due to the hostility settlers endured during the Marcos regime. He envisioned Manila as becoming a modernized world-class city and informal settlers and the urban space they used were the barrier to achieving that goal (Shatkin). 10 million people without legal titles to the land they lived on were declared as criminals and large-scale evictions took place in order to clear space for national construction projects without the provision of housing alternatives for the displaced (Ragragio).
Flynn 4 The widespread mistreatment from the hands of an authoritarian government caused otherwise fragmented groups to unite under a common cause. Community Based Organizations (CBOs) formed in this period of high civic awareness and involvement. Many utilized the Alinsky Method in which community mobilization is achieved through boosting general attention to small scale issues, learning to address those problems, and eventually moving onto more politicized national problems (Shatkin). While this was successful under the oppressive dictatorship, large group mobilization fell to the wayside after the legal and economic changes of the early 1990’s. The LGC explicitly created opportunities for CBOs and Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) to participate in local government but with the new political structure, there was fragmentation amongst organizations and between them and the residents they represented. CBOs split over the decision to cooperate with the local officials or to retain the radical stance that had gained so much traction in opposition to Marcos (Shatkin). Most community organizations decided to focus on political lobbying and bargaining at the local level for specific, direct improvements in order to avoid alienating the communities that began to expect tangible changes from their organizations. As a whole, civic participation has decreased and informal communities have lost their place in pushing change for large-scale socioeconomic and land tenure issues. Organizational Roles and Conditions Today While the structural change in government responsibilities contributed to the weaker position CBOs and NGOs are in compared to the 1970’s and 1980’s, the failure to address urban poverty also comes from corruption. Local governments are in control of CBO and NGO registration and are able to exclude organizations and representatives from being involved in the
Flynn 5 LDCs. Additionally, local politicians are often the elite members of society, with personal stakes in development either through relationships with landowners or being landowners themselves (Shatkin). Private interests are prioritized in the real estate market in part due to the corruption of government officials, but also due to the fact that the LGUs lack the necessary financing mechanisms that would allow for them to provide the services they are responsible for. Private development has to be prioritized in order for the locality to have any source of revenue. With land becoming more valuable each year, governments have not met the expectations set forth in the UDHA requiring them to set aside and develop land specifically for affordable housing. While there have been instances of urban poor communities being successful in their push for basic housing and infrastructure improvements, but progress has been marginal compared to the constantly growing problems. Informal settlements in Metro Manila are dispersed across the region as residents typically locate wherever there happens to be vacant space on both privately and publicly owned land. Larger communities have developed but compared to other nations with persistent issues of informality, The Philippines have fewer hard boundaries for where slum dwellers live, making it harder to address their needs on both a local and national scale. In 2002, the estimated percentages of informal settlers amongst the sixteen municipalities that make up Metro Manila ranged from 21.3% in Taguig to 51.8% in Muntinlupa City. The largest city by population and land area, Quezon City, had 35.2% of their residents living in informal settlements, which then amounted to around 170,000 people (Ragragio). More recent estimates from 2010 thought the total number of informal settlers to be near 4 million in all of metro manila, with just under 25% of them residing in Quezon City (Ballesteros). Quezon City had historically been fairly
Flynn 6 undeveloped and uninhabited compared to more urbanized areas of the region, which was an attractive option to many settlers who moved in from the crowded, denser urban centers of Metro Manila. A plan had been set forth by Marcos during his regime to build a large government office campus in the city that was ultimately abandoned due to lack of funding, prompting even more in-migration. Although the democratically elected President Aquino promised settlers that land would be dedicated to them in the National Government Center Housing Project (NGCHP), it was stalled due to fragmentation amongst CBOs and the rapid increase in settlers causing tension and necessitating change in the original agreements. The earlier families of Quezon Cities were assured a certain amount of space on private plots but as the population grew, plans had to be adapted with multi-family buildings and reduced space, with priority allocation given to the newcomers. CBOs attempted to negotiate with the government, causing lengthy delays and breeding distrust of the community organizations. Informal settlements will often come into conflict with police and local government as development projects are designated to fill the empty lots on which they reside. While the government will attempt to resettle after forcible evictions for private development, the relocation sites are often not in close proximity to sources of employment. Publicly sponsored housing can be located up to three hours away from a job and as a result, many are forced to move back into informal housing closer to the urban employment centers in order to make a living (Shatkin). The physical conditions of informal settlements can vary greatly, from temporary shelters, to permanent and semi-permanent housing. The term “slums� generally refers to the former and are marked by overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, insufficient public services, and dangerous structures. Slum-dwellers face significant environmental and health risks due to their
Flynn 7 living conditions. Air-quality and congestion are among the largest risks for those living within the most urbanized parts of the region and settlements near water features are at high risk of flooding and other environmental disasters. Metro Manila experiences high rates of respiratory disease from the overcrowding and city pollution. Community based organizations are less focused on the environmental hazards of living within informal settlements, treating land security and tenure as the higher priority. The government has also developed fewer programs for reducing environmental risk and the associated consequences than it has for the provision of shelter, relocation, and resettlement based programs (Ballesteros). With climate change becoming an increasingly paramount threat to island nations like The Philippines, living conditions for the poorest of the poor are unlikely to see any large scale improvement in the coming years. Key Strategies Since this paper has primarily highlighted the inefficiencies and failures of the government to address Metro Manila’s housing crisis and urban poverty, the key strategies will focus on the bottom-up approaches that local and non-governmental organizations have focused on in their efforts to improve their communities. The first is community mobilization using principles for the Alinsky Method, which has become less popular in favor of political bargaining for specific improvements and interests. Community mobilization is meant to create environments in which residents are aware and interested in the issues not only local to their community but those that affect informal settlers everywhere. It is characterized by people coming together with the intent of taking collective action to improve their situations and being able to identify their priorities as a group. CBOs and NGOs attempt to facilitate the development
Flynn 8 of such an environment but can face challenges of trust and representation. Poor residents can be unsure of the value in community building and mobilization as it is a slow process that leads to more incremental changes over time compared to direct and specific political lobbying. Outsiders that come into communities may also lack the nuanced knowledge of pre-existing power relationships and may need to do targeted outreach in order to ensure that marginalized sub-groups have a voice. Despite the challenges, the facilitation of mobilization can lead to greater cohesion and consensus amongst communities, which grant them greater power in determining their outcomes, closer to the level of influence that organizations had prior to decentralization (ACHR). The second strategy is building a community savings program. The local government may have legal authority to acquire and develop land but it means nothing without the financial capacity to do so, which is why private interests are so dominant in land markets. A community fund makes slum-upgrades more feasible and a developed fund may eventually provide stronger negotiation powers and a stake in the purchasing of land. Community savings projects have been a part of urban poor communities and were initially focused on providing basic needs such as food. But now many organizations have redirected their funds to obtaining legal housing and making physical improvements to slums (ACHR). Like mobilization, creating a community savings program will require facilitation in order to convey its value to residents and determine specific roles, responsibilities, and where the money should be allocated. A functional savings program can also serve a social benefit as it requires members to meet on a regular basis, constant communication between themselves, and awareness of the issues in their community. With the assistance and guidance of CBOs and NGOs, these groups have the potential to develop
Flynn 9 into their own organizations with agency and a much higher degree of control over their living conditions. Although it faces challenges due to the need for significant cooperation and trust from community members in order to be as successful as possible, it is an important strategy because it not only builds community but introduces an element of self-reliance and lessens the dependence on cooperation from local officials. Community mapping is another strategy that groups employ as part of their planning process. A mapping project also serves a social function and requires collaboration, internal leadership, and widespread participation from members in order to collect a comprehensive image of a community. Organizations must teach the required technical skills and develop a way to manage information, providing a systematic approach of determining a community’s priorities and pre-existing conditions as other methods may contain information gaps. If completed successfully, a community mapping project can reveal nuanced differences amongst groups that may have initially appeared homogeneous. It also reveals the priorities and most pressing or common concerns of a community as a whole, a valuable tool when advancing to the next step of planning improvements. Similar to the two previously mentioned strategies, implementing this type of project requires organizations to work intimately with their community to gain their trust and then to bring divergent groups together for the pursuit of a common goal. These strategies can take variable amounts of time depending on the size of the group, differences amongst them, the quality of their current physical conditions or political relationships, and their historic and cultural differences. There is no clearly defined plan for CBOs to take when attempting to advocate for and advance the lives of informal settlers. But mobilization, community savings, and mapping are all
Flynn 10 centered around the idea of bringing people together to build a stronger position for themselves. It is important to highlight the inadequacies of the pre-existing systems within Metro Manila from a broader perspective while fostering social connections for informal settlers to eventually be in a place to make more than piecemeal demands from their government officials. The Philippines have a history of active civic engagement that has not carried over to the political and legal landscape post-decentralization. Since the passing of the Local Government Code, there have been official means for public participation, albeit limited, and most CBOs and NGOs chose to work within those constraints. The strategies outlined above are by no means radical, but they are meant to contribute to building a sense of community and desire to take collective action, to eventually push the institutionalized limits. Future Outlook and Conclusions An amalgam of economic and sociopolitical factors have contributed to the prevalence of informal settlements and slums in Metro Manila. Despite the economy and legal institutions improving on paper, the reality is that there is a growing class of underrepresented people living in harmful, unstable environments with little formalized recourse. If conditions persist as they have without significant change, it is predicted that the region will have 9 million people living in slums or other informal settlements by 2050 (Ballesteros). The growth rate of slums is even higher than the rate of urbanization. If elites continue to dominate land markets and the government continues to devolve civil responsibilities to insufficient local governments, the number of people priced out of the formal land market will grow. Without economic growth that keeps pace with that of urbanization, the divide between the wealthy elites and the average Filipino in Metro Manila will widen. The country must address the contradictions in its political
Flynn 11 system if it is ever going to reverse the years of failure to serve the needs of the urban poor. The lack of affordable, livable, and secure housing is an issue that will not be resolved on its own but one that Metro Manila must address if it hopes to prevail as an emerging global city on the international stage.