Restore anti- squatting law to thwart Kadamay gangsterism

LET’S call a spade, a spade. The attempt by around 500 members of the leftist urban poor group Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) to occupy another government housing project in Rodriguez, Rizal last week was outright gangsterism masquerading as socialist activism. How else can you characterize a so-called “protest action” aimed at illegally occupying vacant housing units, already allocated to soldiers and policemen, by a mob that has no legal claim to these whatsoever?

Emboldened by their successful coup last year in Pandi, Bulacan, where around 6,000 families forcibly took over 5,728 unoccupied government- built houses, Kadamay clearly planned to use the same strategy to unlawfully take possession of “idle” housing units built by the National Housing Authority (NHA) in other areas.

Although President Rodrigo Duterte has generously granted to Kadamay members the housing units they occupied in Pandi, its chairman, Gloria Arellano, vowed that their members will continue to occupy other idle NHA houses not only in Bulacan but in other parts of the country. This despite the president’s warning to the leftist group not to occupy other government housing projects at the risk of facing a violent dispersal.

“We cannot guarantee that because the poor should really be given housing… They did not attempt to evict us before because - ed badly on the [Duterte] adminis

Kadamay is clearly using the “pro-poor” card against the Duterte administration in order to justify and advance its radical agenda. The leftist group’s failed bid to illegally seize the housing project in Rizal will not be the last because it knows that any dispersal that ends with injuries or death will play into their anti- Duterte propaganda. And apparently, they’re not at all afraid of being criminally prosecuted either, especially after the antisquatting law (Presidential Decree 772) was repealed by Congress in 1997 through Republic Act 8368.

Although we have a law penalizing trespassing, it is full of preconditions that any squatter with a creative mind—and a good lawyer—can practically impossible for landowners to secure a conviction.

Without the anti-squatting law, the only remaining legal obstacle for “informal settlers” —the politically correct euphemism for squatters—is the “Lina Law” (Republic Act 7279), which imposed criminal sanctions only on “professional squatters,” or those “individuals or groups who occupy lands without the express consent of the landowner legitimate housing.”

The problem, however, is that neither RA 7279 nor its implementing rules clearly spell out what housing” means. Is P2,500 a month place qualify as legitimate housing?

In the absence of a clear-cut “legitimate housing,” how can you prove, let alone convict anyone as a professional squatter? Perhaps this explains why, to my knowledge, no person or group has ever been convicted of professional squatting or of being a member of a squatting syndicate in the 20 years since the Lina Law was passed.

The absence of a legal deterrent against squatting only encourages Kadamay and militant urban poor groups to invade someone else’s property at will without fear of reprisal or punishment. The irony of it all is that, in the case of the Pandi and Rodriguez invasions, Kadamay ended up victimizing their own kind: police, soldiers, jail guards and other urban poor who are also homeless because of their meager wages or income.

- ing, however, is that no politician, except for Duterte and Sen. JV Ejercito, has called out Kadamay for its brazen invasion of government property. Not even after one of its members was caught on video selling a unit in Pandi that was awarded to him by the NHA. Admonishing Kadamay, Ejercito said: “Hindi puwede ang libre. [ It cannot be free]. There is no such thing as free. Even the 1987 Constitution says the government should provide affordable housing. It doesn’t say free housing.”

Sadly, most of our politicians have been accustomed to pandering to the noisy urban poor crowd, obviously scared of antagonizing them for fear of being tagged as “anti-poor” or “anti-people” and losing the “masa” vote. That’s because militant urban poor activist have successfully perpetuated the narrative that anti-squatting laws unfairly penalize the poor and the homeless. But if that were so, why have progressive, liberal, and prohuman rights Western democracies like England, Wales, Scotland and the United States, recently criminalized squatting?

Since 2012, squatting in England and Wales has become a criminal offense under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act. “For too long, hardworking people have faced long legal battles to get their homes back from squatters, and repair bills reaching into the thousands will there be so-called squatters’ rights. Instead…we’re tipping the scales of justice back in favor of the homeowner and making the law crystal clear: entering a property with the intention of squatting will be a criminal offense,” the British housing minister said.

In the US, the state of Michigan enacted a law in 2014 criminalizing squatting, making it punishable allowing a landlord to use force to recover possession of a property from a squatter.

True, the government has a legal and moral obligation to provide affordable housing to its poor and underprivileged citizens. But it should not be at the expense of taxpaying, law-abiding, and hardworking Filipinos who have toiled to have a property to call their own.

Poverty should never be an excuse for anyone to take someone else’s property. If it was, then we should acquit every wrongdoer who takes another person’s belongings in the formula for chaos and anarchy.

Unfortunately, the repeal—and absence—of an anti-squatting law appears to have bred a mindset of entitlement among residents of blighted communities that is being exploited by militant groups like Kadamay. Which is why it’s about time to put the word “law” back into “law and order.”