Off-city relocatees want their plight tackled in Oslo talks

Relocated urban poor families have called on the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF) and the Philippine government (GPH) to tackle the sorry situation of thousands of resettled families in the peace negotiations which starts today in Oslo, Norway.

Sandra Aparil, spokesperson of Task Force Relocatees (TF Relocatees) and president of the Saint Marta Relocatees Alliance (SMRA) in Bocaue, Bulacan, said “thousands of relocatees hope that both panels would immediately address their principal problems — the acute lack of jobs, the absence of livelihood opportunities and affordable and decent housing units in remote resettlement areas.”

Aparil said the approval of the Comprehensive Agreement on SocioEconomnic Reforms (CASER) “should prompt the Duterte administration to fulfill the President’s promise to construct factories and generate jobs in relocation areas.”

“Our demand is for the quick implementation of a national industrialization policy and the scrapping of the privatization of social services like housing, and utilities like water and electricity, all of which are covered by CASER. We firmly believe that the NDF will bring up the matter of the misery and squalor that grip the urban poor in the relocation areas. CASER can provide relief not only to the relocatees but to all the urban poor in the country,” Aparil stressed.