A full-fledged department to address housing woes
The country’s largest real estate and housing group is pressing hard anew for a full-fledged department that will finally enable the government to address the perennial and ever-increasing housing backlog which the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) has announced to have reached 5.7 million units as of 2016.
This untiring call-out to government took a high pitch as the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders’ Associations, Inc. (CREBA) gears up for its forthcoming 26th national convention at the SMX Convention Center in Davao from Oct. 25-28.
Suffice to say, the backlog couldn’t have risen this high had CREBA’s long-proposed Department of Housing and Urban Development (DHUD) bill – a measure, that has been time and again certified urgent by several Philippine Presidents – been enacted into law. Only a full-fledged department can consolidate government efforts to attain our national housing goals with a Housing Secretary clothed with ample powers, functions and corresponding administrative accountabilities.
With only a coordinating council at the moment, the national shelter program loses the keen attention and priority it deserves. A 2009 Asian Development Bank study showed Philippine government spending for housing at less than one percent of its budget, the lowest in Asia. Indeed, housing has ranked among the least of government’s priorities for years.
Pushing for the DHUD forms part of CREBA’s 5-point agenda, which envisions “A Home for Every Filipino” by raising housing production to about 10 million units in 20 years.
Based on available figures and CREBA’s estimates, an average of 500,000 units a year must be built within the next 20 years if we are to dramatically address, if not totally wipe out, the huge housing problem.
The success, however, of any government housing program depends on a well-planned and holistic consideration of all factors that should come into play in ensuring effective and sustained program implementation.
The DHUD must be so created as the highest national policy-making body empowered to address housing in its totality by encompassing four major aspects: housing finance, production, regulation and administration – a holistic (not selective) combination of not just a few, but of all these important functions and considerations.
No new funding is necessary as the existing appropriation for HUDCC, including personnel and assets, can be transferred to the DHUD, creating a simply structured, lean and mean department.
To power up buyers’ capacity through an incentivized home-lending approach, CREBA’s proposed Omnibus DHUD Bill aims to put up a Centralized Home Financing Program (CHFP) that will run a secondary mortgage market system to make long-term and affordable financing accessible for the millions of qualified low-income earners in need of a home of their own.
The resulting surge in beneficiaries – both formal and informal – can be covered by an initial R350 billion fund from bond investments by the SSS (R5 billion), GSIS (R25 billion) and the Pag-IBIG Fund (R70 billion or its 70 percent investible funds), R200 billion from the banking system’s unused lending portfolios for agriculture-agrarian purposes, plus R50 billion provision in the yearly national budget to support for informal settler families (ISF).
The Department must have powers sufficient to ensure that: (1) the KSA’s, LGU’s and the private sector operate harmoniously where the Housing Secretary possesses adequate administrative and supervisory powers over KSA’s and their governing boards; (2) housing and urban development efforts are accorded high priority; and (3) that funding support allocated to housing by existing laws are allotted and used judiciously.
With the objective of raising housing production to the highest possible level to match the shortage and compounding annual demand, a Housing Department will provide a tremendous boost to the economy by creating new communities, employment, income opportunities and taxes for better public services.