Congress close to passing bill creating housing dep’t

Congress is close to passing a bill creating a Department of Housing needed by Vice President Leni Robredo to help her grapple with the country’s 5.5 million housing backlog.

Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito, chairman of the Senate urban planning, housing and resettlement committee, disclosed this after Robredo appeared before a Senate finance sub-committee chaired by Sen. Loren Legarda and explained the proposed P428,418,000 budget of the Office of the Vice President for 2017.

Although they belong to opposing political parties, President Duterte named Robredo to his Cabinet as head of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) which has six different housing-related agencies under it but have different mandates.

Robredo asked that the bill creating the Housing Department be declared as a certified measure so that both chambers of the Congress –the Senate and the House of Representatives –could fast-track its passage.

Ejercito told Senate reporters that he and the Vice President are one in the objective of having the bill approved as soon as possible.

“We need one, full-pledged agency so that the government will show that it is serious and capable of finding solutions to the existing 5.5 million housing backlog. As it is, the six agencies have an average output of 200,000 housing units built annually,’’ he said.

Asked how long the 5.5 million housing unit backlog could be wiped out after the enactment of the bill creating the housing department comes into force, Ejercito said it could be wiped out in five years or at the end of the six-year Duterte administration. That is, if one million housing units could be built annually.

Ejercito said the Senate was “very, very close” to passing his measure creating the housing department and was already on the second reading stage but was overtaken by the start of the May 9, 2016 presidential campaign period.

After having re-filed it in the current 17th Congress, the measure is now on the technical working group (TWG) stage after which the measure would be scheduled for floor debate, he said.

“So we will just adopt most of the provisions and the bill itself. I’m also hoping that our counterpart in the House may fast-track it so that by next year, we will have a Department of Housing that will really take the lead in solving the housing backlog,’’ he explained.

During the committee hearing, Ejercito said Robredo asked for a moratorium on off-site resettlements because of the poor quality of houses built which are far away from the residents’ employment, among others.

He said he and Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, both former city mayors, are waiting an invitation from Robredo for a meeting with local government units (LGUs) mayors and decide on the extent of their help to the housing shortages as he and Gatchalian were successful in building in-city housing units. Ejercio and Gatchallian were the San Juan and Valenzuela city mayors, respectively.

“That is why we organized the Housing Summit early this year, a product of nine months of continuous meeting and brain storming. We want to coordinate all the projects (of the six agencies under HUDCC) so that we solve the very low or 20 percent occupancy of existing public housing. It is a waste of government resources. Let us do it well, let us do it properly,’’ he added.

Robredo lamented that the current status quo at the housing sector is not working which has led to the 5.6 million housing backlog as “the housing direction or program is not working.’’