IRR for human settlements department signed

The implementing rules and regulations (IRR) for the newly established Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) was signed yesterday by housing officials, allowing the new agency to proceed with its initial plans to address the national housing crisis.

President Duterte signed Republic Act 11201 in February, which consolidates the functions of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB).

Under the IRR, the agency is mandated with “policymaking, regulatory and performance monitoring in three key areas” – environmental land use and urban planning and development; housing and real estate development; and homeowners associations and community development.

“The HUDCC is just a coordinating council. Now we have direct control over key shelter agencies. This gives us the authority to be involved in project implementation, policies and others,” HUDCC chairman Eduardo del Rosario told reporters.

The IRR stated that the full implementation of the law would be on Jan. 1, 2020.

The DHSUD will be headed by a secretary who will sit in the National Economic and Development Authority Board and National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, among other bodies.

Duterte has yet to appoint a secretary, pending discussions with Senate President Vicente Sotto III and then-House speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo so that the new member of the Cabinet will get a “better reception” from Congress.

Former senator JV Ejercito, principal author of RA 11201, earlier said Duterte can choose between Del Rosario and National Housing Authority (NHA) general manager Marcelino Escalada Jr. to appoint as secretary of the newly created DHSUD.

Simultaneous with the creation of the DHSUD, RA 11201 also reconstituted the HLURB into an independent quasi-judicial body called the Human Settlements Adjudicatory Council.

The DHSUD also has administrative supervision over the NHA, National Home Mortgage Finance Corp., Home Development Mutual Fund and the Social Housing Finance Corp.

Del Rosario said the DHSUD was keen on hitting the ground running in addressing housing woes, with hopes to close the 6.5-million housing gap in the next 20 years.

“We need to identify idle government lands for urban development,” the housing czar said.

A 2016 University of Asia and the Pacific study found that the country will have a housing need of 12.3 million by 2030 – given a backlog of 6.7 million from 2001 to 2015, and a projected housing demand of 5.6 million from 2016 to 2030.

‘No delay in Marawi rehab’

Also Task Force Bangon Marawi head, Del Rosario, who is facing graft raps over the delay in implementation of rehabilitation projects for victims of the Marawi siege, said they were “on track” for the scheduled completion of the rehabilitation.

“There is no delay because we are on track with regard to our master development plan timeline,” said Del Rosario, who explained that delays are a matter of perspective.

He said the rehabilitation is delayed in the eyes of affected residents, who want to go back to affected areas “immediately.”

Over 100,000 Filipinos remain displaced as the government continues with its rehabilitation efforts two years after Marawi City was besieged by Islamic State (IS)-inspired terrorists, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“Before residents can go back to the most affected areas, we must first resolve the issues on the ground,” said Del Rosario, a retired army general.

According to the HUDCC, there are more than 6,500 lots in Marawi but only 45 percent have land titles. Furthermore, out of more than 4,000 housing units that need to be demolished, only 70 percent have given consent to be cleared.

“We have to fix issues such as land ownership and consent. Without settling them, we would see ourselves in court,” Del Rosario added.

IS-inspired militants took over Marawi City on May 23, 2017, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee. The siege, the longest urban warfare in the Philippines since World War II, ended in October 2017 with nearly a thousand militants dead.

The ICRC said over 100,000 people have either been living with relatives or in evacuation centers and transition sites. These people, two years on, still struggle daily for access to potable water, viable livelihood and permanent shelter.

The war forced President Duterte to place the entire island of Mindanao under martial law, which will expire in December this year.