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Tropical Storm “Ondoy” had barely exited the country when the government once again blamed poor families—estimated to number about 80,000 (400,000 men, women and mostly children)—for the unprecedented flooding.
The government has prohibited these poor families from returning to their homes from the evacuation centers. Housing officials talk publicly about evicting all 80,000 families and relocating them outside the city, far from jobs and basic services.
These government actions are based on the belief that the poor caused the floods by blocking the esteros and rivers with their homes. Fortunately, there were other explanations for the flooding. Architects, geologists and urban planners reminded us that the causes of the floods were much more complex: Cabinet and city officials conniving with developers to violate sensible planning rules; deforested and quarried mountains around Metro Manila; climate change. Guilty, too, are the city officials who ignored the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) of 1992, which mandates each city to set aside land for social housing. If this had been done 17 years ago, there would be fewer families on the riversides and esteros.
The poor are partially to blame, but there is a huge difference between the poor and the officials conniving with developers. The latter violate the law for gain, motivated by greed. The poor live on the shabby waterways because they have to. They are there to survive and would gladly move to a relocation center in the city where they could go back and forth to their job sites. They are not necessarily opposed to relocation; but they are opposed to evictions and relocation that are inhumane and violate the Constitution and international covenants and laws.
We ask for two things. First, let government establish an independent board of inquiry to look into the basic causes of the flooding. We will then know who the main violators of the common good are. The study can examine also the possibilities of in-city relocation for the poor on the waterways.
Secondly, we ask government not to evict poor people until we have an explanation for what really went wrong, and until there are fully prepared and discussed plans.
The urban poor will resist eviction and relocation that violate the law and further impoverish them.
Do not make the poor the scapegoat for the greed of the wealthy and powerful. We see poor people walking the streets looking for rice for their families. Don’t add to their suffering.
John Francis Lagman
Urban Poor Associates
Tinig ng Maralita
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